The Sun Slave
by PurpleFuzzyDragon
Summary: After an innocent mistake her second year, Carina's existence is wiped from the memories of everyone around her and she is cursed to live each day twice. Sixth year rolls around and she is nameless face. Why, then, does a regular boy who has been forgetting for five years suddenly remember her?
1. The Ghost Story

**AN: I've gone through and edited this story and I'll be gradually posting the changed chapters. Originally, I intended on making large changes, but discovered I didn't want to once I began reading it, so the changes are just for clarity and smoothness.**

Chapter 1-The Ghost Story

Albus set down The Quibbler into his lap and quirked an eyebrow. "You want to do _what_?"

"Start a school newspaper," Leo repeated.

Albus rubbed his head. "Forgive me. I did hear you the first time. I really meant _why_."

"You know I want to be a reporter! This would be the perfect chance to get a kick-start."

Albus looked across the compartment at his peculiar friend. Not that he didn't love Leo…but the chap was a bit overly enthusiastic about some things. "Listen, Leo, it's a smashing idea, but our school doesn't have any…well, news, if I'm being completely honest. Not like the real wizarding world anyway."

Leo waved a hand away as the train shuddered beneath them. "It can just have one or two stories, and then the rest will be filled with things like cartoons, new spells, potions, ads, that sort of thing. I know loads we could stuff it with. Besides, it doesn't have to be long. It can be short and cheap. "Perfect for broke wizards with short attention spans."

Albus rolled his eyes, but couldn't help smiling. Leo was a character. He was the most sociable and agreeable guy he'd ever met. If he wanted to, Albus didn't doubt the boy could talk circles around him leaving him dizzy on the ground. But he didn't. Albus always left their conversations feeling happier somehow. There was just something magnetic about Leo he couldn't explain. "Mate, where would you get the paper? And who'd give you the clearance? Who would help yo—Oh, no."

"Oh, yes."

"You are not involving me in this."

"Oh, is the son of Harry Potter afraid of a tiny little newspaper?"

"I'm more afraid of a bit fat zero on my OWLS, so you can forget about it. You're a sixth year; you don't have to worry about your NEWTS until next year. Just find someone else."

"But you're a great writer, Al. I've seen it. You describe things with such passion!"

Albus knit his brow. "And where would you find that out? Taken to reading my essays before I hand them in?"

"More like your journal, Mate."

"You WHAT?!"

"I'm kidding," he chuckled. "I read the letters you write over your shoulder sometimes. They're pretty funny."

"How—You do?" He hadn't talked to Leo all summer and here he was suddenly revealing he was much more interested in Albus than he'd ever thought. Was he this way with all of his friends? They certainly weren't best friends. He didn't see Leo much, them being in different classes. Leo wasn't even on the Gryffindor Quidditch team even though Albus thought he'd make a great Keeper. Still, it'd be a shame to lose Leo as the announcer. No one could put a spin on the game quite like he did.

Leo nodded. "And you're a better writer than any of my other friends."

"You tried asking Heather? She followed you around most of last year."

"Yeah, but I was hip to her, trying to make her old boyfriend jealous."

"Really? Figures."

Leo stared out the window, glowering. "I hate girls. They're so stupid."

Albus raised his eyebrows at him, but this time more surprised than critical. Many girls were overly-friendly to him, but he always spurned their advances. He was never rude about it, though, which was what confused Albus. He'd never been around Leo long enough to notice before, but the more he thought about it, the more he realized, Leo didn't have any female friends. Not a one.

Albus cleared his throat. "You think you may be stereotyping there, Mate?"

"I suppose."

"Besides, you may not want to say that with a girl in the compartment with us, eh?"

Leo jumped upon seeing an apparition, sidled tightly at the window, carving itself out of the shadows. She was silent and still as the moment just before waking from a dream. She had eyes as cold as the great North. "Merlin, I didn't even notice you!" he shouted.

She looked over and smiled lightly. "That was my intention. Excuse me." She rose and left without a word as Leo stared after.

"So, I hear Mary's a good writer," Albus continued.

"What?"

"Mary. For your newspaper."

"Oh! Right."

"You may want to talk to her, but if you hate girls, it may not be the best idea."

"That girl who just walked out," he said, not paying attention. "Who is she?"

"Uh? What girl?"

Leo raised his eyebrows, leaning in on his elbows. "What girl? The one who walked out a second ago!"

"Ummm…" Albus had a faint recollection of another presence, but it faded like darkness at sunrise the more time passed. "I suppose there was someone here, wasn't there? Oh, at the beginning you mean? Yes, there was a girl here, but she left to sit with her friends. That's an odd thing to bring up out of the blue, though."

Leo stared at him incredulously. "Not then, just now! The girl who just walked out a few seconds ago! She had black hair, Hufflepuff insignia; looked like a third year."

Albus raised his eyebrows and nearly smiled. Leo was playing with him. Oh, this was so like him. It was odd; Leo wasn't usually this good of an actor. "Very funny, mate. Oh, yeah, that ghost girl who just came through. I saw her. Hilarious."

"No! You really don't remember?"

Albus stared blankly.

"Ugh. Alright, you know what? Let me go get her. She can't have gone far and you're acting bizarre." He opened the doors and looked both ways at an empty aisle. He closed it and sat down, perplexed.

"Trouble?"

"She's gone. Did she go into a compartment next door?"

"You're freaking me out, mate. You know there was no girl?"

"Yes, there was!"

"Okay, okay," Albus conceded, holding up his hands in defeat. "Whatever you say." Leo worried him more than a little sometimes. "I'm going to see where the food cart is; I'm starved. You want anything?"

"Nah," he said, dropping back into his seat.

Albus shrugged and left, with the full intention of finding a certain group of handsome-looking girls to annoy. He would've invited Leo as it was always more fun with two people, but the bloke was never really into that sort of thing. He didn't seem to like irritating people. He was eager, compliant, handsome. Something was off about him, though, that Albus had never seen before. Those words echoed in his mind. _I hate girls. They're so stupid._ They sounded sincerely harsh like he'd wanted to smack Heather with a board while he said it. He tried to shake it off.

Albus stopped and smiled upon hearing high-pitched screams through the compartment door. Yep. Definitely them. He shoved the door open to an assortment of colorful females who dished out venom about as well as a boy with a broken arm dished out ice cream. But if Albus really wanted to get chewed up and spat back out in a mess on the ground of the aisle, he'd go bother the Slytherin girls. These ones were harmless.

"Hello, ladies," he greeted. "Need some company?"

"None from you, Albus Potter!" Pat spat. "Crawl back into the hole you came out of and leave us alone!"

"Awww. Never have I heard such passionate words from you, Patty-Cake. Does someone have a crush?"

"WHAT?! No! And don't call me Patty-Cake!"

"Then what do you suggest I call you? Little ball of sunshine? Cassy-Cake?" He raised his eyebrows. "Lover?"

Pat's face swelled red. "No, you may call me by my name: Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen!"

"Fine, then. I rather like it, you know, Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen. Has a sort-of crisp, syllabic feel to it. My I call you PCM for—"

"NO!"

He held his hands up in mock defeat and took a seat next to an odd girl already clothed in her black robes with her nose near the window. "So, what is it you lot are doing in here?" he asked.

Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen seethed as she sat stiffly beside Albus's cousin, Rose. "We were just telling ghost stories."

"Ghost stories? Stories the ghosts at Hogwarts have told you? Liars. Every last one of them. Don't believe a word they say. Especially Peeves. Bloke convinced me there was a magical toilet first year."

"Not like that," Rose told him, shaking her head. "They're a muggle tradition. Just scary tales you make up on the spot or urban legends and the like."

"Yeah," Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen sneered. "Really not your kind of thing."

"Oh, on the contrary," he responded, leaning forward on his elbows to further torment the girl. I quite like something that gets the heart racing."

He flashed a glance at Mary and her cheeks burned red, but Patricia didn't fall into that sort of bait. "Great," she said. She stared straight back at him, leaning forward herself in challenge. "So, why not try cliff jumping?"

He turned his attention to easier bait, the girl with long, blonde hair beside her. "I'll bet you tell the best ones, Mary. I hear you're a great writer."

She beamed. "Well, I am pretty good."

"He doesn't actually want to hear your stupid ghost stories, Mary."

"What? No, really, I do. Don't put your hate for Mary's stories on me, Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen. Honestly. You should really learn to support your friends."

She fumed.

"I know a myth about the school." The group looked around until their eyes landed on a girl next to him, black against darkness of the night outside the window. The only color on her was the Hufflepuff insignia trying to fight its way past the shadows she merged with and embraced. The only way Albus for sure knew she was there was that shallow voice and the whites of her eyes, shrinking and lengthening as the shadow's eyes twitched and moved.

"A myth about the school?" Rose asked, studying the floor. "Do you know one, Mary?" she asked, looking at her friend.

Mary shook her head. "No, it's that girl…I think. Was it you, Rose?"

Rose shook her head. "That sounds…I don't know."

Albus's eyes tried looking at her, but her image was fuzzy and dark as if he were looking at her through a pair of binoculars and just couldn't focus them. The more he tried, then, the more he lost interest in the image he was searching for. Who was it? What was it? Did it really matter? Who cared? Look at that interesting design on the fabric of the seats here. He'd never noticed it before.

Then, that voice came along again. "It's deep in the labyrinth of the dungeons, you'll find it. My mother told me about it when I was young. If you go far enough, along the right path, you'll come to it, but you can't look for it. That's the trouble. It has a charm thousands of years old that forbids adventurers from touching it."

"What is it?" Rose asked.

"A pond."

"A pond?"

"Legend says if you intentionally try to find its waters, the charm makes your mind drift and float away. You forget what you were looking for and leave. Anyone with the intention of entering the pond will never do so. The people who put the charm there knew it could never be touched because the pond gives you special…abilities."

"Abilities?" Mary asked quirking an eyebrow. "Rose, I know you've never told a ghost story and you don't come from a Muggle family like I do, but you can do better than this."

"It's not me telling it," Rose objected.

"Oh! Right."

"The water is made of pure light and drowns the senses in chaos," the voice continued, starting to echo off of nothing at all. "It burns and tickles and tears at your skin like fabric while sewing it back together into its own design. You want to laugh and cry and scream and sing as your insides are churned and reconstructed. But when you come out…When you come out, you feel new, like a piece of metal that's been melted down and merged with another to form an alloy. A whole new self. They say that's where the first animagus and werewolves were created. From there, they spread through genes and bites until the first died out and the mystery of the pond vanished. Those who enter it do it by accident, walking upset in the dungeons until they're lost in the darkness. They don't think about the pond. They have no idea it exists. Only knowing of it can keep you safe. Some trick of fate makes them plunge directly into it without knowing what happened. Then, they emerge new people. New beings for eternity. Perhaps they can stay normal for the first month, but soon, their teeth grow into giant tusks and their skin shreds into hair while their brains are blended. Perhaps they can walk away without a care in the world, but one day they go through the nightmare of growing small as a bug or becoming just another dog in a kennel before they turn back to themselves, unable to control it at first. You can walk those dungeons forever looking for it to turn you back, but as long as you remember that pond, you will never find it."

The group was silent.

"AHHHHHH!" The compartment screamed in unison as Leo flickered the light back on so the world once again was bright. Albus didn't remember turning it off.

"Merlin, what is it? Your faces are all white. Why were you just sitting in the dark?"

"I—er—ah—ghost stories," Albus said simply.

"Oh. Really?" Leo asked. "That sounds like fun. Haven't done that since I went camping with my father when I was little with some Muggle chaps from around the neighborhood. Someone told a good one then? You're all wide-eyed."

"Someone told a good one…" Albus said, trying to pull himself back into reality. "Er, well, I guess. I don't know. It wasn't really that good in hindsight, I suppose, no. Just about a magic pond, really."

"Yes," Rose agreed vacantly. "Quite simple, but…"

Mary nodded. "Not sure why I'm so shaken up by it."

"Who told it, then?" he asked. They looked around. No one answered. "Well?"

Albus shrugged. "Wasn't you, Mary?"

"No, wasn't me. Pat? Rose?" They shook their heads.

"Well, it had to have been one of you," Leo said, closing the door behind him and sitting beside Albus. "Wait. Albus, are you trying to get me for before? When I said there was a girl in our compartment? You know I wasn't joking about that. She really was there."

"Er, wasn't there a girl sitting next to you, Al?" Rose asked him.

"Someone," he nodded.

But no one was there.


	2. The Kind You Forget

Chapter 2-The Kind You Forget

I love this time of day. The time when the sun greets the sky with waves of colors and the water the night has squeezed out of the air is let back in. September here is always cold, but that doesn't stop me from coming out on the roof to watch the sun climb and turn the sky a dusty shade of blue, lighting up the colors of the trees.

This is the best time to be awake. The time when you can look through the scope of the sky and see things few people would imagine.

My name is Carina Honeycomb and I am unafraid, even delighted, to say that I am a pretty odd bug. Off the bat, I've no real way with words, or at least when they cross between me and another human being. My hair is a light auburn with eyes to match. I have an interesting view of the world because I may as well be cling wrap. You can see right through me, use me, crumple me up in a ball, and there'll be way more where that came from. I don't expect you to understand just yet. It took me a while too.

"Pocahontas!" I hear a girl shout. "Poca—Oh, why didn't I guess?" She looks up at me from the green. "Get down from there! Breakfast is starting soon!" I knit my eyebrows. I don't usually see Frieda. Ever. While it is nice to view her smiling face and long, lustrous blonde locks tousling in the morning wind, I prepare myself for her presence. She only comes for one reason. "Oh, no, don't—"

I slide from my post and fall through the air, feeling the wind run over my skin as it rummages about through my robes and hair. I land hard on both feet in front of her, making the ground shake beneath me. I like that feeling. The sudden halt of acceleration, forcing the Earth to shake up through my bones. That feeling of power. I don't get it too often. Frieda doesn't understand, but that's okay. I wouldn't either if I had as many friends as she does.

"Doesn't that hurt? Honestly, Pocahontas. You've got to stop that! One day, you'll break something."

"I'll be fine," I tell her. "As long as the morning sucks the grass dry, I can get down the same way each day."

She shakes her head. "Whatever, Pocahontas."

"You know, I still have no idea who that is. I can't find her in the library."

"Forget it. It's over your head. Let's go eat some bacon! You like bacon, right? Or are you some vegetarian?"

"Is that another muggle habit?"

"Er. Sort of."

As we enter the Great Hall, Frieda's chatter fills my ears and eyes fill my peripheral vision. I want to duck my head and hide. I don't often have this many people looking in my direction, but I know it is only Frieda they see. She is stunning with flawless skin and bright eyes. She has so much energy; people can't help but gravitate towards her. It is truly odd to see her up so early, but I know it is only because of me. As we sit, I pick up what I've been expecting.

"So, Pocahontas, you're friends with Sean, right?"

"I sit next to him in potions, if that's what you mean."

"Well, has he…said anything?" She began twirling a piece of hair in her finger, the way she does when she tries to be coy

"He says things often."

She rolls her eyes. Though she acts bored with people, I think Frieda is really more patient than she knows. Otherwise, she would never bother with me. "Has he said anything about _me_?"

Perhaps I can dodge the question. "Well, I don't pay much attention to him. I find the hush tones of the wind outside the classroom vibrate against the window glass just right to make me think of bees in their hive. It makes my skin prickle and wake."

"Ugh. Nothing? You don't remember anything?" She doesn't even realize there are no windows in the Potions classroom.

"Do you want to be his lover?"

Her face turns red as a cherry tomato in two seconds flat. "Well, I…no! Not…that's _weird_ , Pocahontas. No one says 'lover' anymore."

"Then you want to know if he is saying bad things about you?"

"No, I—Wait, is he?" I shrugged. "Listen, _Pocahontas_ , I want you, for once, to start paying attention to what's around you. It'll be good for you." By that I believe she means it'll be good for _her_.

"I'll ask him if he likes you," I told her.

"No! Don't—Wait…will you? Oh, but don't tell him I said to."

"You didn't."

"No, but I—Ugh. You're hopeless. Just forget I said anything!"

"Why are you angry?"

"Go away!"

I just sit and stare at her for a moment, then continue to eat my bacon and eggs in silence as Frieda's other friends come in and crowd around me. One asks if she could have my place while I am still eating. I leave the Great Hall without finishing. Frieda doesn't notice. Of course, I never expected her to.

I'm the kind of person people usually forget. I'm not pretty, though I'm not exceptionally ugly. If you're lucky enough to see me, you'll most certainly be distracted by something shiny nearby. Only those with sturdy attention spans can dare see my face. Not ever Frieda has looked me in the eye. I doubt anyone besides myself knows their color.

I walk through the halls a bit, breathing silently. I have this odd feeling in my gut, like something is swirling around in there, trying to get out. I rub my back against a concrete pillar, smiling at a conversation beside me. "James Potter! There is a tall glass of man!"

A voice scoffs gruffly. "If you ask me, the only reason everyone's so bent on snogging those two boys is because of their father. Honestly, they're not even that good looking! Rose, though, is gorgeous. The only reason no boy's got her is because the dynamic duo will hex anyone who comes within five meters of her."

"I am not so shallow that I would only go for a boy because of his father!"

"Yet so shallow that you would only go for him because of his looks," I comment.

They jump a foot and stare at me for a moment as I lay easy against the wall. They don't appear to have heard what I said, only interpreted my presence. They walk away, giving me weird looks. I think I heard them say, "that creepy girl," but you can never be sure.

I walk down the hallway with no destination in mind. I'm often like this. Wandering. My mother says I have dirt in my brain from all the time I spend rolling around in it. Eventually, I make it to the dungeons. It's light and airy in the uppermost section where all the students scamper. I decide I'd best return soon. I'm heading towards the Slytherin dungeon and it's best they don't spot a Hufflepuff too far into the dungeons than is right to be proper.

Then, I hear distressed shouts, struggling, and laughter. I rush to the corner and turn it to see four sets of wands out: three turned against one. It was Albus Potter. Scorpius has always taken a liking to picking on him. Where the trouble stems, I'm not sure. Today, it seems as if the boy has taken his hate to the next level. He wants Albus in the hospital wing.

Not surprisingly, none of them notice me there. I tend to blend especially well into the shadows of the dungeons. Lorcan once told me that if I was in field of flowers meant for a painter's canvas, I could be wearing the brightest of colors and he would still take his thumb and press me in as a black smudge. Not that he'd ever remember saying that.

"What do you want, Malfoy?!" Albus shouts. "I didn't do anything!"

"On the contrary," he says. "You remember summer vacation?"

"Summer vacation?" Albus smirks. "Oh, is that what this is about? Daddy cut you off and is making you work at Wizard Wheezes? A store owned by _my_ family? Honestly, how was I supposed to know you didn't want anyone to know? If you had said, 'Albus, do not write a carefully crafted and magnificent essay on the joys of watching me suck up to your uncle every day of the week and send it to every in the school,' then—."

A flash of green light emits from the end of Scorpius's wand, pinning Albus tightly to the ground. At first, I think it is just a hit, but I see Albus struggling. Scorpius's wand is pointed straight at him, acting like an invisible steel pitchfork whose rusted tines just graze Albus's neck. The light is gone, but the curse still remains.

"If you enjoy walking without limping," Scorpius warned, "I'd keep my mouth shut about that." I see a strong glow of emerald in a line from his wand to Albus's neck and Albus starts wheezing on the ground.

"Check it out," one of the boys says. "A wizard wheezing."

Scorpius ignores the two as they slap five. "Do I make myself clear?"

Albus says nothing.

The other boys look at each other for a moment and raise their wand so electric streams of light bash at the boy on the ground, lashes incinerate lines of his clothing and skin.

"No!" I flick my wand at one boy and he doubles over laughing on the ground. The other two look up just as I raise my wand for the other crony. "Expeliarmus!" I shout. But the boy deflects the spell easily now that he knows I am here. My advantage was the element of surprise. I am no dueler. These boys probably fight each other daily. Just for fun. I barely know all the spells from first year let alone their advanced techniques. Albus never had a chance. Neither do I.

I just step back to run when a flash of red channels through the air and blocks my vision. I'm enveloped in pain.

 **Then, I come back to life.**

There, on the roof, I take breath, noticing the colors have left the sky. I am shaking as I always do. I can never tell if it's real. I press my forehead against the roof's shingles, feeling the cold grains against my skin. Merlin, heart, slow your beating. Just go a bit slower for me so you don't jump out my chest and land in my hands. Ribs, I entreat you to stay in place. Don't shift. Don't spread apart like feathers on an eagle and fly off. Then, what will protect my fragile vascular organ? What will keep it from pressing itself through my skin to land on my sleeve?

I slide from the roof and land hard to a scream. "Hello, Frieda," I smile.

"Merlin, Pocahontas! Don't _do_ that! You could land on top of me! Or break something!"

"I won't," I promise her. "Do mind if we head towards the Dungeons? I left some books in Potions the other day."

"I don't know. I'm kind of hungry." But if we go to the Great Hall, she'll never leave with me. Too many friends, foods, colors. Too many distractions.

"You're right. So am I. Besides, I'd hate to bump into those Slytherin boys again. They're always around there at this time."

Her face flushed. "Um, you know, do you have homework to do before potions?"

"Yes," I lie.

"Then we should get them," she smiles, grabbing my hands as she pulls me forward.

We traipse along as I coax my body to calm itself. I still haven't gotten used to it. After all these years, all these mornings, it still shakes me to my core. I think one day I may skip the roof and let myself walk into the unexpected. I never do. If I try, my eyes might float out the window, carrying my soul with it, and I'll crumble. And when I wake up, everyone around me will see the torture of leaving a vision.

We're in the dungeons, but I have a feeling and cut a different route for us, a longer one that will take up time.

"Isn't the Potions classroom that way?" she asks me.

"I like this route better," I say, though we're past where the route would be to get there.

I hear squeaks against the cold stone floor, just as I expect. Albus rounds the corner, crashing into Frieda. He looks back, about to skitter off when three boys turn the corner, the Slytherin insignia decorating their garments in emerald. Their smiles falter when they see us.

"What's the matter, boys?" Frieda asks. "Haven't you ever seen two attractive young women before?"

"Still haven't," Zabini snears. "Now, back off. It's five against three. Potter is ours."

"Well, let's see," Frieda says. "We've got a third year Ravenclaw, fifth year Gryffindor, and sixth year Hufflepuff against a group of flobberworms."

"Don't," Albus warns her. "They want me. Don't worry about it."

"That's exactly why we will," I tell him, looking him in the eyes. "We're just as much a part of you as you are of yourself."

He stares back into my charcoal irises for a moment before knitting his eyebrows and saying, "What? That makes no sense."

"One day, it will," I promise him.

"Back off, you filthy excuses for Slytherins. You're supposed to be sly. Cunning. All I see are little boys who can't duel well enough individually."

"Fat chance you can duel better than us. We're _older_ than you," Zabini tells her.

"It doesn't show," she retorts.

The boys don't say a word for a moment. They know Frieda isn't as advanced as them, but that's what makes her fat mouth stick. Ravenclaws are smart enough to know what they're getting into. I brought her because she knows the obscure spells that hide in the backs of books and wait to be set on unsuspecting Slytherins.

"I'm not fighting a little girl," Scorpius decides.

"Good thing none are here," she says. "It'd be a shame to see her kick your arse."

Malfoy grips his wand tight, but I point mine straight at his neck. His eyes don't leave hers for a minute, but he must see me in his peripheral vision because he smirks. "Come on, guys," he says. "This was fun, but let's grab some breakfast."

We watch them leave and Albus breathes out, thankfully. He looks at Frieda with curious eyes. "Thanks for that," he tells her.

"Those guys are jerks," she says.

I walk down the hall, towards Potions as they head to the Great Hall together. I'm hungry, but don't follow. This is their moment. I want them to be friends. They won't notice me anyway. Like I said, I'm the kind of person you forget.


	3. Pocahontas

Chapter 3-Pocahontas

"A school newspaper," Professor Longbottom mused. "It could be lucrative, but haven't you anyone else to do it with?"

Leo shook his head. "A lot of my friends wouldn't take it seriously, are worried about their grades, or aren't very good writers."

"Listen, Leo, it isn't just that. We'd have to order the paper. What would you write about? You're just a student. How would you print it?"

"I can work my way around those kinds of things, trust me. It'll be easy."

Longbottom looked skeptical. "I'm sorry, Leo. I'll take it up with the Headmistress, but I don't think it's a good idea. I'd put this dream away until you're old enough to apply for an actual newspaper. Now, if you'll excuse me." He picked up a bag and slung it over his shoulder. "I've to go see Mrs. Longbottom."

Leo's shoulders shrank as he watched the professor exit the green. He'd thought about this all summer and here the third teacher he asked didn't think it would go over well for him. People here read the Daily Prophet, Witch Weekly, and The Quibbler regularly. Why not his?

He sighed, leaving the plants of the greenhouse behind. He groaned, looking at his watch. He needed to get to History of Magic within the next two minutes. He sped across the green, legs pumping. He was sure to get a detention on his first week of classes. Not the best start to the year, for sure. His stomach churned as he thought of his failure. Things always came so easily to him; it wasn't every day his charm was turned down. Making friends and appeasing teachers was just so easy, like a game to him. He knew even the stubborn, hard-to-get blokes would sidle up to his personality if he was just patient with them. That was his secret, the one he told everyone, they just wouldn't believe. The key to talking is listening. That was something his mother had taught him. As much of a witch as she was. And not the kind he went to school with.

As he streaked through the hallways, he couldn't help but wonder if he should talk to Mary like Albus had suggested. Her hair was really pretty and she was nice…but she was repulsive. They all were. He couldn't take them in large doses. They were just terrible. He hated them. Like stupid Heather. He thought he'd hurt her feelings when he told her he wasn't interested. He tried being friends with her. Then, she forgot about him the minute Fred came back into the picture. It made him sick. Not just her but that he'd pitied her.

He stopped in the doorway of class, panting, and slid into a seat while the professor's back was turned. "Late to my class, Mr. Wespurt?" Binns asked, floating around to look at him. "Not a very promising start to the year. I expect to see you in detention later."

"Oh, no!" a girl's voice piped up. "It wasn't him who was late! It was me!"

Binns looked at her somewhere at the front of the room and knitted his eyebrows. "It was you? But I could've sworn—."

"Oh, yes," she said. Leo couldn't see her, though. She was lost in the sea of heads. "He was here all the time."

The professor nodded. "Yes, well, then I expect you to be here for detention this evening. I apologize, Mr. Wespurt."

"No problem," Leo said, perplexed. Who'd taken the blame for him? And how? She was clearly on the other side of the room. Binns was dead though… He was never known for being the sharpest. Alright, there was that, but then why even do it? Every time he looked through the heads to the front of the room, all he saw was the back of a black figure. He smirked. Maybe she had a crush on him. Flattering, but he'd have to stay away from her if that was the case. The last thing he wanted was a perky girl clinging to his arm.

But when class was out, the seat at the front of the room was empty before the children at the back could file out. She was gone? Weird. That was fast. Really fast.

He got up and began walking to the Gryffindor Common Room with Jeremy.

"Hey, Jeremy," he asked. "Who's that girl you sit next to?"

"Girl?"

"The one who took my detention spot."

"You can do that? No way! I didn't know you could trade detention spots!"

"No, you can't, but a girl said she came in late."

"What girl?"

"I'm asking you. Don't you sit next to her?"

"Sit next to her? Yeah, I guess I do sit next to a girl. She's pretty quiet, though. Don't pay much attention to her. Don't pay much attention in the class, though, either. Mostly practice my ancient runes. And draw. Hey, you should see the drawing of Sean in my notebook, getting his face smashed in with a beater. Oh, it's great."

"So you don't know her name?"

"Whose name?"

"The girl who sits next to you!"

"Well, Melony and Gertrude sit to my left, why?"

"Not them, the other girl!"

"Other girl? Is it a girl I sit next to?"

"Yes, directly to your right."

"What's to my right?"

"The girl."

"What girl? There's just Frederick and Thomas to my right."

"Jeremy, there are three seats to your right."

"Yeah."

"And they're all filled every day."

"Yes."

"But you only in a row with two other boys."

"That's right."

"So, by simple math, there should be one girl to your right. And since Fred and Thomas sit at the window, she should sit right next to you."

"Okay."

"Who is that girl?"

"…What girl?"

"WHAT GIRL?! The one…You having me on, yeah?"

Jeremy stood there blankly. "Leo…I genuinely have no idea what you're talking about. My brain in fried just listening to you."

Leo shook his head incredulously. "This is just like the train ride when I talked to Albus about her…" Leo stopped in place.

"What? What is it?"

"Was it the same girl?"

"Who?"

"Um…forget it. I need to talk to Albus."

They walked up to the Fat Lady as Jeremy complained about early morning Quidditch practice and how he was sure Pat would get keeper because of her small size, which wasn't too far off. Leo's mind was trying to stay on that girl, though. It seemed like the instant he stopped, she would drift from his mind, easily forgotten, like a leaf he'd ripped off a tree to let float down the river, passing from the minds of everyone that saw it, plain and ordinary.

Jeremy stared at him for a moment with knitted eyebrows. "Polyjuice," he told the Fat Lady. "Er, Leo?"

"What?"

"You okay, Mate? It's not like you to zone out like that."

"Mmm."

"MERLIN, YOU ARE THE ANNOYINGEST BOY I'VE EVERY MET!" Pat screamed.

"Wait! Wait!" Albus stopped her. She paused, mid-storm to her dorm to look back at him. "Don't you mean 'most annoying'?"

"UGH!"

"This is why I have no girl friends," Leo said walking through the portrait hole. "They're so emotional. They cause so much drama. Just stay away."

"Easier said than done mate," Albus smirked. "They just love me so much."

"Obviously," Leo said sarcastically.

"Unfortunately, he's right," Rose sighed. "Sons of The Boy Who Lived are pretty hot among the ladies. Enjoy the fame while you can, Albus. One day you won't have girls falling over you. I don't even understand why you never take them up."

"Because it's more fun to torment and annoy them."

"Mate, you're fifteen," Jeremy said. "Don't you think you're a bit old for that sort of thing?"

"Nope."

"No," Leo whispered. "No…"

"You've upset Leo," Rose sighed. "That's pretty hard to do, Albus. You must mature."

"No, I can't remember what I was going to ask you!" Leo lamented.

"Oh."

"What were you thinking about?" Albus asked.

"UGH! I CAN'T REMEMBER! I _know_ it was something important."

"We were talking, let's go back a bit," Jeremy suggested. "Alright, now, you and I were talking about Quiddich."

"Before that."

"My drawings?"

"After that, while we were on the staircases."

"Were we talking, then?"

"Well, we certainly weren't walking in blissful silence, admiring the brushstrokes of the paintings."

"Right, right. I can't remember anything, but it does seem like we were talking about something. That is strange."

"I should cast a memory spell. See if it works," Rose suggested opening her book.

The three boys widened their eyes in unison.

"Ah…yeah, I've tons of homework I haven't done yet," Jeremy smiled, slinking away.

"And I was going to meet a friend in the Great Hall for dinner," Albus smiled awkwardly stepping backwards.

"I'll go with you," Leo agreed. "I'm up for an early dinner. Got no homework."

"Wait, is this because of Jess's nose that one time? I told you guys that was an accident!"

"We're sure it was as much of an accident as Gregory's foot," Albus nodded politely.

"And Daniel's teeth," Leo nodded.

"And the fact that Frieda still can't taste eggs."

"Wait, but—"

"Rose," Leo interrupted her. "You're a lovely witch. No one can brew half of the potions you know or memorize information in Binns's class nearly as fluidly, but please stop trying the new spells."

"Charms aren't your thing cuz," Abus agreed.

"But I—"

The two scurried through the portrait hole before she could close her mouth, talking down to the Great Hall. None of the food was out yet, but Frieda was sitting, back straight, chest high and mighty, surrounded by a group of friends. It was an odd place that had become popular, it being so wide and spacious. The teachers were only around for the meals so every other bit of time, Frieda and her gang of friends danced around the room to the radio and chatted about boys and set off fireworks. Leo knew that Frieda was fascinated with the peculiar things that muggles did meaning everyone who followed her was constantly strung into bizarre activities Leo remembered doing as a child with his parents. Mary being a muggle-born, she was always showing the group odd things like muggle magic tricks, Frisbee, and gymnastics. Leo wondered what odd gag the group was engrossed in today.

"So you mean the pictures _move_?" Dolores asked. "But the same way every time? Not like a photo?"

Mary nodded. "On the screen. It's called the cinema. You go and watch people act out storylines."

"Oh, a play."

"No, not a play," Mary said, shaking her head. "It's on a screen, not real life."

"I don't get it," she said. "There are people in the screen?"

"Sort of…"

"Hey, Albus! You came!" Frieda waved.

Leo looked between the two. He hadn't made the connection before. "Since when are you two friends?"

"Since Monday when I saved his sorry neck from Malfoy and his goons," Frieda bragged.

"Malfoy was after you?"

Albus nodded. "Yeah. Just the usual. Speaking of which, what were you doing in dungeons, anyway, Frieda? You're not a Slytherin. I was down there because Peeves hid my trunk while I was sleeping."

Frieda thought for a moment. "Ummm…You know I can't remember? Let me think. I was going down there to talk to Sean…I mean…no! I wasn't…haha…I mean why would I want to talk to Sean? I barely know him! I was…Oh! I was with Pocahontas, going to get her books. Yes."

"Pocahontas?" Mary asked. "The Native American princess?"

"No, my friend. You wouldn't know her. It's just a nickname I gave her. OH! Pocahontas! There's a moving picture I've seen. That's one of them, guys. You must see it. It's quit bizarre. The muggles sing in unison for some reason and speak to talking trees."

"Why do you call your friend Pocahontas?"

"Oh. Um, well, I can never seem to remember her real name and she's this odd habit of comparing everything to nature, see. And she jumps off the roof every morning—"

"She jumps off the roof every morning?!" Leo asked. "Is she suicidal?"

"Oh, no. It's not the very top. She's got this section that overhangs a window. She lands fine. Odd, really. I never think about her much. You know I can't remember her with us in the dungeons, but I'm sure she was."

"There was another person," Albus agreed, "but I don't remember who it was."

"What is it with you people?!" Leo shouted, exasperated. "Did you get a memory charm to your brains? Why can't you remember anything?!"

The group looked at him. "What are you talking about, Mate?" Albus asked.

"I'm talking about the train, the ghost story, the girl in class, the girl who brought Frieda into the basement."

"Pocahontas?" Frieda asked. "That's so mean! I remember her."

"Then what's her name?"

"I already told you I gave her that nickname because I can't remember it."

"Exactly! Aren't you her friend? Shouldn't that merit you knowing her real name?"

"Ah…well, it's not a particularly memorable name. I'm sure I could ask another of her friends if I knew any of them."

"She's never mentioned another friend?"

"Not that I know of, no. I don't think much about her, except when I'm having trouble in Charms. She smashing at Charms, she is. Well, the theory, anyway. Not the much the casting. Oh, I had this Charms essay the other day I had to do. _Horrible._ "

"The one about the connection between levitation charms and laughing ones?"

"Yes! That was the worst! How am I supposed to know?"

"Chapter twenty of the textbook," George replied.

"Sorry not everyone's a Ravenclaw," Frieda retorted. "It's the beginning of the year. Why would I be on chapter twenty?"

"It's called a gloss—."

"No, no, no, no, no! We are not getting off topic here!" Leo insisted. "Remember your friend? Pocahontas?"

"It was a good movie," Mary agreed. "At least for muggle standards."

"No, that's not—"

"I didn't say that," Frieda denied. "I enjoyed it. It was just unusual. I didn't know muggles did all that back in the day."

"They didn't—"

"STOP!" Leo shouted. The group paused. "Not the movie. Frieda's friend, Pocahontas. That's her nickname. Are we back on track? Why is it no one knows anything about her? Doesn't she have any friends?"

"She must," Frieda says. "Of course, I've never heard her mention anyone. She is quite an odd, though. I'm not sure why you're so fascinated with her. She's not that interesting. Probably would call the sky her best friend if you asked her. Speaking of which, have you heard about satellites? They're an interesting muggle invention. These little stations they put in the sky to track the weather before it gets to us. Much more accurate than the crystal balls in Divination."

"What _is_ right in Divination?"

Leo couldn't believe this. Did no one find this sad? What was happening? This girl was in his year, had probably been in dozens of his classes yet somehow he'd never noticed her. He hadn't recognized her voice that day, anyway. Well, he knew she was a sixth year and he had History of Magic with Hufflepuff this year…just like the Hufflepuff girl who left his compartment on the train! He sat down as the chatter commenced around him. What had she said on the train? He struggled to remember and hold her image as it slipped and shattered in his hands, breaking down and falling through the cracks of his fingers like sand. He dropped to the floor, trying to grab it.

 _Merlin, I didn't even notice you!_

 _That was my intention._

That was it. He hadn't noticed before what an unusual response that was. Her intention? What intention? But he answered his own question immediately.

To not be noticed.


	4. The Boy Who Remembered

Chapter 4-The Boy Who Remembered

I sip in the day beneath the framework of a glass microscope. I am a slave to the will of the sun. I am a slave until I say it is over. I'm not sure how it happened first, but I know I can't leave any other way than the one I've chosen.

I take an empty seat in my History of Magic class at the very front. If I don't, Binns will never call on me. If you take enough care to wonder, you notice I go to all my classes twice. Why, you ask? Well, the main reason is the scariest one: my reality is warped. When I open my eyes in the dream, I look at my hands, hear the birds, bite my tongue, and it all looks, sounds, and feels the same as it always does. I know when I wake up for real that it was my vision. Every time I come back to reality, I know for sure that this is the real world I live in, but when I'm in the dream…I never know. It's hard for even me to wrap my mind around. When I walk in that illusionary state of mind, separated from the world by the sun, I look around and wonder if it's real or not even though I know I wouldn't be wondering that if I were really awake. I just can't process the reality that when I really do wake up, I'm wide-eyed as a captured rabbit and breathing like a fish out of water. It's just not there. I've tried to wrap my mind around it, but somehow, I'm impaired. It is exactly like a dream. And I have yet to go lucid. When I get up after coughing and sputtering, I sigh and know it was all a vision and I can change that reality. When I get up under the sun's watchful eye, within that separate plane of time, I have no idea. That is what truly scares me. Because if I don't know if I'm dreaming in the vision, who's to say that I'm not truly dreaming when I think I'm awake?

I sit in my usual spot, but Jeremy doesn't come. Instead, Leo does. I find this odd considering I know he enjoys socializing and sleeping in the back of the classroom. I watch him take out his books, set them on the desk, and look over at me. "Are you staring at me?"

I'm taken aback by the comment. No one ever notices when I do something odd, or at least I never thought so. "Err, I was wondering why Jeremy isn't here," I answer truthfully.

"He decided to switch spots with me for the day to get his homework done."

I nod, eyeing him for a moment as I take my notes out and set them on the desk. I find Professor Binns to be a bore just as much as the next girl, but this class is really quite easy if you can navigate Binn's relentless talking and filter out the relevant information. The OWLs were a breeze last year.

"So, how are you today…Pocahontas?" he smiles.

"Oh, that's spread around, has it? I'm not sure what it means." Truly, I'm perplexed. He must've just been speaking with Frieda recently.

"I'm Leo," he says genially, opening a book.

"Oh, I know," I tell him, copying the action. "I enjoy your quips when you announce the Quiddich games. I'm Carina."

"Carina," he says, tasting my name in his mouth. I know it is bitter on the tongue, so he will spit it out soon. "So, we've never really talked."

"Perhaps we have and you just don't recall," I say playfully. Truly, we haven't spoken before. When I look at Leo, I see a wish somebody made on a shooting star walking on Earth. I stay away from those kinds of people for I know he's the type to chisel out cubes of the sky and press them deep into his chest so when the darkness finally burns away, there is fire beneath so bright; it can be seen by civilizations thousands of celestial units away.

Leo smiles crookedly at this and turns himself to face me. "I'm sure I would have remembered a girl like you," he returns, obviously just trying to flatter me. I do not smile. I am not amused. The joke is on him. He just doesn't know it. I turn and open my book without a word. _He must be like Frieda_ , I think. _He's patient enough to remember me._ I have only met a few people like her, the others adults and none of them male, so this is an interesting situation for me. _But still…Frieda never acts this interested._ It's peculiar. Even after class starts, I can feel his eyes twitch over to me time after time. _Take a picture. It'll last longer._ That's what Frieda always says.

I write frivolously, copying down every word of the professor's banter. It isn't that I find him particularly interesting or that I can't simply take shorter notes, but my page is the only thing keeping me from staring back at him, wondering what he wants. I think it will go away and I can live in peace again. I am wrong.

History of Magic is my last class of the day, so I leave my things and shoes in the grass and walk in the breeze until my toes get cold. I am surprised to see Leo walking past. Did he follow me?

"Oh, hey," he says. "Carina, right?"

I do not respond. No one remembers my name. Somehow he has. I stare at him vacantly.

"Um, right, well, I was just going to walk down to the lake. Get my feet wet."

"It's quite cold," I warn him. "Don't let Jack Frost nip you."

"Ah…err. I was kind of asking there if you wanted to walk with me."

"Ah, I see. And why?"

"Why?"

"For what purpose shall I impart your presence for so long a time?"

"Ah…good company?"

I pause. "I see. Very well, then. The lake does beckon quite fondly in its serenity."

"Mmm," he says, tilting his eyes in a way that makes me think he regrets asking for my company. We walk down for a bit and I enjoy the wind pulling its fingers through my hair, snarling it like the anti-brush it is. The air smells dry, cold so early in the season. He doesn't say anything, but I know he wants something, so I start.

"So have you started the first issue of your newspaper?"

"You know about that?"

"Sure I know."

"I suppose you heard on the train."

My eyes flash. He remembered that? This was wrong. My fists felt cold. I released them. I didn't like this.

"I did," I admitted. "How goes the news?"

"It's a bust, unfortunately. The Longbottom's not into the idea, and if anyone was to like it, it would've been him, same with the others I asked."

"That is a shame. I hoped to absorb some of your brain through the bits of it you scratched out for all to see. I quite admire how you can do that, you know."

"What?"

I stopped. I'm usually good with words, but I can't seem to find them here. I gesticulate a bit, hoping to draw letters from the air for use.

"I admire how you can…be seen so elegantly."

"Oh. Thanks."

"Did he say the problem? Longbottom, I mean."

"Well, paper, people, authority. The usual road blocks."

"You're giving up," I tell him as if it's a fact and not a question, but he doesn't treat it that way.

"No. Not yet, anyway."

"You shouldn't," I say. "If you want something, take it. You're a forward man. You don't sidestep problems or dance around what you want. You'd know the call if it was whispered to everyone but yourself."

He doesn't say anything. I often say nothing with blankness in mind, but I know he's thinking hard.

"So why did you wish to talk with me?" I ask. His game is growing irksome. He should say what he means. I go to bed strictly at sunset and do not have time for this.

"I, um, heard Frieda talking fondly of you and thought I might strike up a conversation. See why she calls you Pocahontas." Liar. Frieda would never mention me in anything other than passing. What is it you really want?

"Frieda hates ignorance," I tell him. "Almost as much as you hate your mother." He stops where he is walking and I follow suit, taking a step back with my left foot to look behind me at the boy. I realize what I've done. I remembered his words on the train. They intrigued me at first, but what I've said isn't funny. I've grown impatient with my own mother. I let her slip from my tongue. Am I thinking of her without knowing it now? I can still see her face, smiling with locks black as the night braided down to her scalp. She was beautiful with a smile so white; it outshined any other part of her face. I'm embarrassed to have said it. I'm determined to stay in control for the sake of my pride and continue in deadpan. "Oh, I'm sorry," I tell him. "I meant girls. You do hate girls, don't you?"

He stands there, looking me over. "How well do you know me?" he asks.

"No relationship is defined on how well one person knows the other, only on how the two parties know each other equally. So, in such a case as this, I know you very well, but I understand you very little."

"But I _don't_ know you," he responds, falling into my lap.

I walk slowly over to him, enjoying the tickling sensation of the grass between my toes. "You know me better than you think," I tell him, watching his wispy, brittle blonde hair swish in the breeze. I pause in front of him. I was going to say something mellow and confusing, yet meaningful, but decide against it. I can't think of a good explanation for my opinion anyway and as long as we're here…

"Why do you hate you mother?" I ask him. But as he opens his mouth, I realize I was right on the mark. I realize even more, I don't want to know. The very thought of having such information makes my head sear and stomach churn like rusted bits of metal are stuck in there. My bones might crack and crumble and deteriorate until there's but sand circulating through a pile of flesh on the bare ground.

To stop him, I throw myself into his embrace. "No, don't tell me!" I command, wrapping my arms around his neck. He says nothing. "Not here," I say, the words slipping from my mouth. Such a big mouth it is! I sigh and bite my thumb so pain temporarily fuses with the thick skin.

 **I open my eyes to the sunrise fading.**


	5. Teacups

Chapter 5-Waiting for No One

Leo sat at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, eating his lunch beside Lysander and Jeremy while watching Albus bicker with Pat down the table.

"Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen, I am frankly _insulted_ that you would even _suggest_ I copied your homework."

"They're the same essay!"

"And what's to stop me from assuming you didn't copy _my_ homework?"

"You've got no memory of writing it."

"We don't know that. What if you erased my memory of writing it and then took the essay for yourself?"

Pat rolled her eyes. "We're in the same class, you thick git. Binns is going to know you took it."

"He's dead!"

Patricia rose from her seat and leaned far over the table so their noses nearly touched, her eyes boring into his. "How about this? If you don't write a new essay, I'll hex you!"

"Your breath smells just awful."

"Hey, Jeremy," Leo started, turning his attention away from the scene.

The boy turned away from a rather entertaining spectacle farther down the table to his friend. "Hm?"

"I need to switch places with you in History of Magic."

"What? I thought you liked the back. I need to be up front. Got a bad ear, you know?"

"It'll just be for today. I promise. I need to get Binns to notice me. Still haven't gotten any approval for my paper."

Jeremy nodded. "No one wants to do it with you, then?"

"No one's got the time between Quidditch and schoolwork. I wish the days were longer."

"You know I've got time, but I can't write to save my life. Start talking about the Quidditch game and I'll end it off discussing salmon. Something's wrong with me."

"It's not just that. The professors don't know where we'll get the paper, how we'll print it, or if anyone will even buy it. Merlin, I'm not even sure what my first few stories would be."

"And that's near everything you need," he admitted.

"I swear, this week's felt like a month."

"Leo, what do you need another responsibility for? We're going to have NEWTs next year, anyway, and you won't have a free second to spare for a newspaper. You're piling on too much, if you ask me."

"And when NEWTs come next year, does that mean you'll quit the Quidditch team?"

Jeremy piled eggs onto his plate. "My future's just as much in Quidditch as it is in those NEWTs. If I become the best of the best this year, I can get a spot on a professional team for sure. Besides," he grinned, "girls come to me this way."

Leo grimaced at the thought. "As long as you're using them right back."

Jeremy looked up from his plate at the boy. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Leo!" Rose said, announcing her presence as she took a seat among them. "I found out everything I could on Pocahontas."

Leo's eyes widened. "Seriously? How did you even know I was looking for her?"

"Frieda told me you wouldn't shut up about it. Frankly, I am glad someone else takes as much of an interest in magical history as I do."

Leo kitted his eyebrows. "What?"

Rose removed a volume from her bag and turned to a bookmarked page.

" _Pocahontas was a Native American woman who lived in North America during the latter part of the sixteenth century. She was the daughter and advisor to the Powhatan chief. A primary account of her tells the story of her saving the life of John Smith, the leader of an English colonial expedition, though because Smith is the only one who writes of the tale, muggles believe it to be false. She eventually, married Englishman John Rolf and became Rebecca Rolf after moving to the British Isles to represent her people and converting to Christianity. Muggles believe she died at a young age of Tuberculosis, but in reality she was murdered in a duel between herself and several dark wizards. She is significant for being the first witch from the New World to learn to use a wand and marry a wizard from overseas. More importantly, though, are her vast contributions of foreign knowledge of the magical properties of plants and several dozen different potions still in common use today which otherwise may have been lost to history._ " Rose slammed the book shut, sending an echo through the Great Hall and a cloud of dust into her white, freckled face. "Don't you just love history?"

"It's thrilling," Albus agreed unenthusiastically as he scribbled furiously at a piece of parchment.

"I'm sorry, Rose," Leo told her, "but that isn't the Pocahontas I was looking for."

She frowned. "How many Pocahontases are there?"

"This one's still alive."

She stuffed the book back into her bag, rather disappointed.

"Ah-hem!" Albus stood, clearing his throat as he looked down at a sheet of parchment paper. "I have written a new essay. _New World Witchcraft: A Female Perspective_ ," Albus flashed Patricia a glance. She scowled.

The day went by as it usually did. Transfiguration with the Slytherins, Charms with the Ravenclaws. They really weren't the best classes to have with those respective groups. The Ravenclaws were always showing off their spells, irking the Gryffindors, while the Slytherins seemed to take advantage of Transfiguration and sent fur flying on a daily basis. He still occasionally woke up with a webbed pinky and ring finger that would mold back into his hand as the day went on.

Leo enjoyed Professor Trelawney's antics more than most people. It was entertaining to see a seventy-year-old lady hopping around the room with wide eyes magnified by the glasses on her nose, chanting odd lines of nonsense. He wondered how this had ever been considered a class. Or how it was even still running. Their predictions seemed rather ambiguous for his taste. The only people who seemed to take this class were boys who didn't want to expend effort in ancient runes, girls who actually believed the rubbish…and then there was Lorcan Scamander. He was definitely Lysander's twin. At least on the outside. He and his brother had taken his mother's house of Ravenclaw, but it seemed only Lorcan retained his mother's unusual senses.

Leo raised an eyebrow as Lorcan stared into his teapot. They did the exercise every year and it never seemed to tire Lorcan as his mind switched through endless meanings, piecing the formation into various pictures. To Leo, it just looked like coffee grounds at the bottom of a cup.

"Um..." Leo started. "Could you, er, re-explain this to me?"

Lorcan nodded, rather proud of his knowledge. "The bottom is the past, the middle is the present, and the top is the future, but if you want to get more complex—"

"That's not nece—."

"—then the bottom is really home and family, the side with the handle is your love life, the part opposite the handle is money, the part closest to you is the present, and the part farthest is the future."

"Okay," Leo nodded, picking up none of it. "Oh, look, you've got a heart. There's a good sign."

"Depends on where it is."

"Right, right. Well, it's…at the top. Love in your future perhaps?" Leo flipped through the pages of his book and frowned. "Oh. It means you'll be cursed. A heart? Really? Why would that mean a curse?"

"What else?"

"At the bottom, in your past, there's a fish." Leo flipped through his book. " _The fish is a sign that the course for the reading of the future has already started and cannot be undone. Resistance is futile._ " Leo looked back up at Lorcan. "Again, why would a fish mean that?"

"Indeed."

"Ah!" Leo jumped, looking back at Professor Trelawney. "Professor. I didn't see you there."

"Give me your cup, child," she insisted, gesturing to Lorcan. He handed over Leo's cup. She caressed the cup lovingly in her palms, staring deeply into it. He wasn't sure if he wanted her holding that. He felt much better with it in Lorcan's hands. "I see death," she intoned.

Leo's eyes bulged. "What?"

"Don't worry my dear. It's not necessarily for you. Perhaps just someone close to you."

"Why would that make me feel better?"

The professor lowered the cup to Lorcan's face. "What do you see my dear?"

Lorcan studied the teacup. "Well, I see…a sun, there in the present."

"And a sun is a sure sign of happiness," she lamented drearily, as if she was upset to think Leo would be skipping gleefully in a field of daisies or something. "Anything else?"

"Scissors. Open scissors."

"Perhaps the cutting of a lifeline?"

"But it's in the past. Maybe just separated from something. Not necessarily life."

"Quite right, my dear. Great tragedy awaits him."

Leo shook his head. This class never made him feel better.

* * *

Leo waited, patiently for his last class so he could catch the no-name Hufflepuff girl. He would sit down with her today during History of Magic and she wouldn't be some mysterious specter. She'd just be another girl, another name to add to his list.

Or maybe not. Because she wasn't there.

He sat in Jeremy's seat at the front of the class, but the entire time, the Hufflepuff never came. She was gone, almost as if she'd known.

At the end of class, he didn't bother getting up. He sat there until the room was empty, save the ghost shuffling papers around and occasionally pushing a moldy sandwich through his head. Binns looked up suddenly, but past Leo. "Ah, there you are!"

Professor Longbottom walked in, but paused when he saw Leo sitting there, looking up from his deep thoughts. "Mr. Wespurt!" he greeted, walking up to Leo. "I just came along to tell you I'll approve your newspaper."

Leo shot up from his seat. "You'll do what?!"

"You do still want to do it, don't you?"

"Yes! Yes, I want to, but what about before? You said—"

He waved his hand away. "When I found out Jeremy and the Scamander twins were involved—"

"They are?"

He looked surprised. "Well, aren't they?"

Leo paused. Better to lie first and ask forgiveness later. "Yes…yes they are. Err, but what about the paper and ink?"

"Worked out, I was told. All of it, yes. We get swell discounts on all parchment and ink, we being a school after all, and the printing will be processed through Frontier Parchment, an independent printing company."

Leo's mind was whirling. How had it all suddenly fit into place? "I didn't think you were interested when I talked to you," Leo admitted. "I didn't think you'd go to the trouble of getting my friends and a printer."

He looked surprised. "Me? Why, no, it was your friend. Yes, quite a persuasive fellow."

"Friend?" Leo had tons of those. "Who?"

"Well, I can't say I remember very well. She was…well, her name seems to have slipped my mind. That is embarrassing."

He paused in his spot. That couldn't have been possible. But Professor Longbottom knew all his students' names by heart and Herbology was a required class. "That's okay. I think I know who you mean. She's in this, my last class, but I actually only ever call her Pocahontas. But," he added, "we could look up the attendance list to see what her real name is."

He and Longbottom turned to Binns in unison, both curious. Leo had the feeling, though, that his professor's curiosity was less than his and even more sure that by the end of the day, the name of the girl would vanish from his mind. Binns looked up. "Oh, oh, right, the attendance list."

"She was absent today," Leo told him. "I imagine she was sick." Conveniently.

"There's just one," he said. "A Carina Honeycomb. Yes? That the girl?"

Leo cracked a smile. "That's her."


	6. The Brown, Spotted Bird

Chapter 6-The Brown, Spotted Bird

I rest my chin on my crossed arms which sit on the banister to the seats of the Quidditch pitch. I love the sport. Sometimes, when I need to think, I come and watch the players and they make me wonder what it's like to really be in the sky. I've never really properly learned how to fly a broom before. I was terrified as a first year so the headmaster excused me from the classes. They weren't mandatory. I would've gotten my parents to get me a broom so I could fly high through the air, but the cards didn't fall into my favor there. I have no money. More than a little, I worry about the future. If no one ever remembers me, how will I ever get a job? How will I ever earn a living? I've always wanted children, but I see now there is no such option for my life unless I somehow break free from this wretched curse.

I watch a girl twist through the sky on her broom. Quidditch practice for the Ravenclaws was canceled because Lysander Scamander got a bunch of his team sick in the hospital wing, so I figure she must be of the lucky team members who didn't catch it. I couldn't be sure, though. She was wearing some strange robes, indeed. Some rope strangled her neck and fabric flowed down to her knees a bright orange color, fanning out like an umbrella every time she dipped low so I could see a denim material stretched tight across her legs. It was the strangest combination and I assume a muggle-born friend must be behind it. Perhaps Mary. They're the same age and both Ravenclaws after all. Or perhaps she has a muggle parent.

The girl seems frustrated, getting faster and sloppier, dipping her head back constantly when the ball she hits with her bat doesn't make it through one of the rings. She isn't very good. Eventually, I decide to leave. She's only making me anxious. I have Potions soon anyway. Not that I haven't already been there today, but the professor is giving a pop quiz I need to ace, as I always do on the written exams. There are advantages to living each day twice.

I make it to the bottom of the stands when I see a boy walking towards the girl who's hovering just above the ground just a few meters away. Leo. Concealing yourself in the stands is like trying to clothe a naked man with a few sticks, so I run and duck into the changing rooms before he steps onto the field.

"You can get a lot more power in that swing if you choke up on the bat," he calls over. The girl turns her head and I see her face clear in the midday light. He's as surprised as I am. It's George.

She dismounts and walks over to him. "And what would you know about keeping? You've never played a game in your life, Wespurt."

"I should say the same thing about you. At least I'm always around the players. I'm the announcer; I'm friends with half the school's players."

"I've played plenty of games with my family."

"Hasn't helped much with your aim, has it? Choke the bat."

She looks irksomely down at the bat in her hands before she notices him walking out of the pitch. "Where're you going?"

"Potions," he replies.

She shakes her head and slowly began walking towards the changing rooms. "Why would he walk over like he was going to talk to me and just leave?" She walks past me, slinging the bat over her shoulder. "And what in Merlin's name does it mean to choke a bat?"

* * *

I snap back to my senses as a letter drops before me, into my lap. It is crusty as the dried blood on a tooth, pasted over with chunks of mud and grass. I stare at it, sitting in my eggs, for a long while, wondering. No one ever sends me letters. Never. I have no person who would ever think of me enough to do so. A squawk issues from before me and a dotted brown owl drops before me, jutting its head in odd, broken movements. I don't recognize it.

I look around. "I'm sorry," I tell it, tentatively touching its feathered head. "I don't have any food for you." It cocks its head and dips its beak into my eggs, moving them around on my plate like a little game.

I look down at the letter. For me, a crowded room may as well be empty, so I use a knife to cut the envelope open, leaving behind a fragile bit of folded parchment with water-stained ink. I unfold it carefully, enjoying the crinkling sound it makes as I spread it out on the table. At first, I'm not quite sure what it is. I think it must be a joke, but who would pull it? Frieda might think of such a thing, but it would surely slip from her mind. Besides, her owl is a snowy white with razor talons the color of wine. Still, I sit there wondering. Who could this be? No one knows me. My own parents have turned their heads from my face, ripped me away from their memories like a gossamer cobweb they'd accidentally walked through. In summertime, I sometimes sit in my old room, wondering what they thought of the Quidditch pictures I had along the wall that have long been torn down, wondering who they think that girl in their photo album is, wondering who they thought the bright pink comforter was for before it was replaced with a flowery blue and white one.

I look over the paper. It's a swirling masterpiece of ink, turning and cavorting about the page. I've never seen a page quite like it where the designs around the outside wink in my direction, grazing the outside words. It's difficult for me to concentrate on what it says with so many distractions, but years of reading the Daily Prophet has subjected me to moving pictures. It reads:

 _The Living Pearl_

 _This particular Goblin artifact draws its date back to the goblin craftsman, Baxg (pronounced as_ bay _) Gearshatter, who constrcted it deep in the mountains of modern day Switzerland. For his time, goblins and wizards alike considered Baxg a mad craftsman, so infatuated with his own work, he had driven himself deep into the ground of a mountain that none dared to go within. The Weisshorn Mountain is a famous breeding ground of the Dementors. There is their territory where they do not hesitate to feed on the souls of any who enter. It is relatively unknown as to how Baxg was able to stay tucked away within this particular mountain range for fourteen years, though it has been speculated that he was able to make a deal with the Dementors._

 _Within the mountain, Baxg used its unique magical properties and even more rare metals to construct what he referred to as the Living Pearl. So infatuated with his own work was Baxg that he created a stone that would increase his brainpower and skill exponentially when harnessed correctly. When Baxg returned to the outside world, he was treated as an outcast. Instead of selling his invention, he kept it for himself to aid in the creation of other inventions, but the Living Pearl needed to be swallowed in order to have any effect and was scarcely believed to be in existence for the simple fact that no one had ever seen it._

 _Baxg was eventually banished by Bulgaria's magical authorities for his ludicrous creations and lived the rest of his life out in Britain. Today, many of his inventions are revered and goblins and wizards alike have officially repealed their original statements about him. There is currently standing a museum dedicated to his achievements. Since Baxg's rise in popularity, the story of his famed Living Pearl spread like wildfire and his body was later exhumed, people naturally assuming he never bothered removing it to pass on since he had no kin. The grave site was found to have no mysterious pearl in it, though, and since then it has become the quest of every historian or another at one point in his or her life to find the thing. Many goblins have even made excursions into the Weissorn Mountain never to be seen or heard from again._

 _It appears the Living Pearl will forever remain a mystery of goblin craftsmanship; however, it has been declared by scholars to be nothing more than a myth._

I pop my head back up to meet the glowing hazel disks of the owl before me. "Who sent this to me?" I ask it.

"Hoot," it responds.

I bite my lip. "I don't speak owl," I tell it apologetically. "And I don't have a treat for you. But thank you." I look back at the page and turn it over in my hands to make sure there's no writing for me. None. "That is odd," I note as I fold it up and slip it in my bag. "Can you take me to your master?" I ask it. It doesn't move. "That is bad news. Well, I'll figure something out. Goodbye, then." I get out of my seat, but as soon as I turn around, two sharp hoots call my attention. I swivel back to see it flinching, light brown plumes that stick out of its head waving back and forth. It suddenly flaps up and rests itself on my shoulder, hooting softly. I tentatively walk forward. It doesn't fly off.

I decide to head to the Ravenclaw table where Frieda is engrossed with Lorcan's tales of woe. "Frieda," I say. "Lorcan. I'm sorry to interrupt, but this bird—"

"Get a new bird, Sacajawea?" Mary asked.

"Sacajawea?" I ask. "I thought it was Pocahonor."

"Pocahontas. Sacajawea's just another one."

"There are two famous muggle Native Americans?" Frieda asked with fascination.

"More than that," Mary smirked, "only I don't think she'd like being called Squanto or Sitting Bull."

"Why not?"

"I'm sorry," I tell them again. "But this bird. Who's is it?"

"Looks like Leo's," Lorcan commented. "I didn't know you two were friends."

"I didn't know you were so oblivious!" Frieda squealed. "He couldn't _stop_ talking about her the other day! I think he fancies her."

"Er…don't know how to break this to you, Frieda, but Leo fancies girls about as much as Albus."

"That is to say, not at all," Mary agreed. "He never talks to girls, like he's afraid of us or something. It's kind of weird."

"Well, he's friends with Pocahontas," Frieda states flatly.

"We are not friends!" I shout angrily. I shoo the bird from my shoulder and walk off as it flaps over the table.

"What is Leo's bird doing here?" Lorcan asks, the conversation dropping from his mind instantly.

The feathered creature follows me, though, resting on a nearby perch outside the Great Hall. The late September air leaks into the school, the wind moaning my name outside. I stand there unable to take it. Is this my vision? Could I track down Leo and make him tell me what his game is, then wake myself and know without him suspecting I do? Or is this real? I can never tell. My reasoning is off here. Every time I think of it, my mind wanders, my vision blurs and magnifies as if drops of water are being placed in my brain and eyes. The thought of it makes me feel colder than ever.

I have an idea. It's rather provocative, I must say, but I don't appreciate getting a taste of my own mysterious medicine. I extend my arm towards the bird and it comes straight to me, as I suspected it would. I stroke its feathers with my fingers and it coos as I walk to Transfiguration.


	7. Those Who Vanish

Chapter 7-Those Who Vanish

"I've no clue what to draw," Jeremy griped for the hundredth time in the dorm. "The first issue's when, you say?"

"Not until the end of the month, mate," Leo assured him. "You've plenty of time."

"Do you think it's alright if I call Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen 'Patty' behind her back?" Albus murmured from a four-poster.

"But it's the start of the year," Jeremy continued. "Nothing's happened around here and I don't know enough about politics to draw a cartoon on that."

"Then just make a funny one. No one's expecting much."

"Because I think she actually likes my nickname, Patty-cake, I gave her," Albus continued.

"I'm not good with comedy," Jeremy told him.

"Then just draw a picture."

Albus tossed a quaffle he'd swiped from the Quidditch pitch into the air. "She mentions it sometimes, you know. Maybe she misses it."

"A picture would be boring," Jeremy insisted.

"Jeremy, draw whatever you want. Hand in a bunch of things and I'll pick what I like best."

"How much do I have to draw?! When's the deadline!?"

"I been thinking about Patty-cake a lot lately," Albus mumbled.

Leo threw his hands up. "I don't know, mate. Have some done by next week and I—"

"Next week?!"

"I think I have a crush on her." Leo and Jeremy paused to stare over at him. He rolled onto his belly to view them from across the room. "Did I say that out loud? I assumed you weren't paying attention."

"I didn't know you could like girls, mate," Jeremy smirked.

"I can like girls. I notice girls."

"Yeah? Like who?"

"Like…like Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen."

"She's not even attractive."

"Yes she is! She's super pretty! Leo?"

Leo looked between the two. He honestly had no thoughts on Patricia. He never paid much attention to girls. They were all rather manipulative for his liking. "Ah…she's a girl, yeah, but I don't think she'd go out with Albus. All he ever does is torment her."

Jeremy rolled his eyes. "As the only one of the fray here who's actually had a girlfriend or friends who are girls, I can with confidence say that no girl wastes her time with a boy unless she gets some sort of kick out of him. Maybe as a friend, maybe not, but Patricia likes Albus."

"Question for you, then" Leo started. "What would a girl call a boy who tries to get to know her?"

"A person?"

"Even when she's avoiding you?"

"A creep."

"What if she's being shadier?"

"There something you want to tell us, Leo?"

"Nah. Forget it."

"Forget it? Who're you stalking?"

"Er…Carina Honeycomb?"

"Honeycomb? She related to the Honeycombs who run Frontier Parchment?"

The name snapped into Leo's mind as being the same paper company his mysterious benefactor had gotten for his paper. "She must be," he responded. "Though 'Honeycomb' is a common name."

"Couldn't be anyone close," Jeremy said. "My parents are good friends with them. They haven't got any children. Not since the other one ran off."

"Ran off?"

"Yeah. There was that little girl who went missing. Albus? You know what I'm talking about?"

"I don't know who the Honeycombs are."

"Oh, well, I used to play with her when I was little when my parents were off chatting with the Honeycombs. She was fun. I'd stopped playing with her when she disappeared, though."

"When did it happen?" Leo asked. This had to be related to Carina. All her oddness and avoiding him. Something was largely off about that girl.

Jeremy shrugged. "Can't say I remember. Maybe our second year? I don't remember her ever going here, though. See, you know what I think happened? I think she was a squib. She couldn't take living in the wizarding world so she ran off to live with the muggles in their world. Sad, really," he thought aloud, staring at the mess of drawings on his desk. "Just up and vanished. I remember her parents didn't seem phased. Just walked around like she never existed. Knew she was gone, but never thought much about it. Like they never had her. I suppose they never cared much for her so they didn't care when she left."

"Maybe they killed her," Albus suggested, grinning.

Jeremy shook his head. "Get out of here, Albus. I've to go to bed."

Albus got off of Gregory's four-poster and left for his own dorm. As soon as the door shut, Leo fell into his mattress, the light from the lamp Jeremy had just blew out still imprinted onto the outside layer of his retina so flashes of yellow shook the moonlight image of his canopy. Jeremy's words flashed in his mind. _Sad, really. Just up and vanished._ Was that really true, though? Her face peered into his mind.

"Jeremy?" he asked.

The ruffles of his friend getting changed paused. "What is it?"

"Didn't you ever think about looking for her?"

"Who? The girl who disappeared?"

"Yeah."

"Not particularly. I never much thought about her. She was so very ordinary."

"Do you think Frieda knew her?"

"Not likely. She was our age. And what's with the sudden interest? I told you, we were thirteen. I couldn't very well drive off looking for her. Think. If Mary or Heather or the like disappeared, would you go on a hunt looking for them?"

"No, I suppose not."

Leo laid there in silence for a long while as he shifted the information through his mind. That couldn't be Carina, could it? It sounded too closely connected to be anyone else. Everything had come so easy when it came to discovering who she was. The only reason she hadn't been discovered all these years was because no one ever asked any questions. But, then, now that he knew who she was, the question was what she was.

"Jeremy," he said.

"Yeah?"

"What do scissors at the bottom of a tea cup mean to you?"

"Somebody put scissors in your tea?"

"No, not—I mean like the grounds."

"This about Divination?"

Leo tucked the sheets in his fingers. "Sort of," he admitted.

"What are you going off believing that stuff for? You know the only reason McGonagall even still has that class is out of respect for Dumbledore and Trelawney. Otherwise, she'd have trashed the useless elective ages ago."

"I know…it's just Lorcan…"

"Is a nutter."

"But I think something's going on with him. He got a heart and a fish. What do you think that means?"

"Maybe he's going to fall in love with a mermaid. I really don't know, Leo."

"It means something different to everyone, though."

Jeremy sighed as he got into the four-poster bed between him and the sleeping Michael. "Stop worrying yourself with that, mate. You know that stuff never works."

"But it did."

"Come again?"

"For me. Lorcan…"

"What?"

"The scissors. They mean I've been separated from something. And my mother left my dad."

There was a pause. "Mate…you didn't tell me that."

"Forget about it."

"When?"

"This summer. Haven't seen her since."

Jeremy lit his wand so the room glowed a shade of pure white light that scared the darkness into shadows across the beds. "You haven't seen her?"

"She's gone. Left," Leo told him, still staring at the lion weaved into his canopy. "Just up and vanished," he said, repeating Jeremy's words from before. Whether he noticed, the boy didn't show.

"It hasn't been in the news."

"My father didn't tell anyone. Guess he doesn't want to face the humiliation."

"Were they having problems?"

"Must've been, but I was too thick to see it. Old man didn't say a word about it when she left, so I've no idea what it was and he hasn't written. I suppose that's why he gave me Lovey over the summer. He was going to give her to my mother for a birthday present."

"Mate…I'm sorry. Is that why you let that girl borrow her for Transfiguration?"

Leo paused, looking over to Jeremy. "I did what?"


	8. Lovey

Chapter 8-Lovey

I can't help smiling at the bird this morning. It coos on my desk as I affectionately stroke its light brown plumes speckled with bits of dark and patches of eggshell. I thought he'd come for it sooner, but he hasn't. It watches over me at night, settling in on the footboard of my bed into a small ball. When I wake, it's gone, but it finds me again outside. Over this past week, it's noticed my routine. It follows me to some of my classes, slouching in a corner outside the window, but mostly I assume it sleeps in the owlery until the sun begins to droop. I think it knows something. About me, maybe. I can't imagine how Leo would train it to do this, though. I once thought maybe Leo was an anigmagus, morphing into that bird because of his acute fascination with me. But then I remember I saw him with it outside the train station the first day, perched high and magnificent against his shoulder. And how would he tell his bird to come to me? There's no way to speak with animals. They are quite dim. All they want in payment for traveling hundreds of miles is food and shelter, though I suppose that's all I would want if I had the skies to bend to my will. Flying would be payment plenty.

But, the bird isn't the only reason I'm smiling. It's because I know who is coming. The early morning October air flushes through the classroom as he flings the doors open and stands stock still in the empty classroom. It's too early for any of the students. He wanted to come here to catch me walking in with the gorgeous chordate. I don't need to turn around. I know it's him. I've been waiting every day for this, you see.

I turn to look at him and smile, taking a seat atop the desk. "Hello, Leo," I greet. I softly touch my fingers to the avifauna's talons and it steps carefully onto my hand. Luckily, it is a small bird, only about twenty centimeters tall, so it's easy to support. I enjoy watching her shift about until she makes it to a sturdier part of my arm.

"You stole Lovey," Leo flatly accuses.

"Oh is that her name?" I ask. "Well, assuming it is a girl. Lovey is a bit of an odd name for a male owl."

"You _stole_ my bird."

"I didn't steal anything. She came to me," I tell him, scratching her neck a bit. She nestles into my fingers and flaps of clear, protective film glaze over her eyes for a moment.

"How did you get her to even touch you? She only sits on my dad and me."

I cock my head. "Is that true, Lovey? I didn't know you liked me so very much! By the way, thank you for letting me use her for Transfiguration. I've had to share Dennison's rat that bites a terrible lot."

"I—You've been _transfiguring_ my bird?"

"Oh, she doesn't mind, do you, Lovey?"

"Give her back! You can't have her!"

I decide he doesn't know. Leo's not much of one for scheme like this, or at least not one to get involved. I've spoken with him and watched him enough times over this past month to know that much. It must've been of Lovey's own choice to be near me. Curious.

"Why did you send me that note?" I ask forthright.

"Note?"

"Alright so it wasn't exactly a note, but it was indeed mysterious and Lovey delivered it to me. Then, I suppose she decided she liked my presence more than yours. I do suppose I have more time to pay attention to her."

"I didn't send you anything!"

I pause. "You didn't?"

"No! Give her back!"

"I'm not keeping her tied down. She can go if she wants. Lovey?"

The bird shifts its head between Leo and me and finally takes off for Leo's arm. Leo looks at me suspiciously, then at the bird. "Why did you take her? Just to get my attention?"

"Your attention?"

"I'm sick of you stupid girls always being like that! Can't you just leave me alone?! Does it always have to be your way while everyone else suffers?! What's the deal with you?! Why did you help me with my newspaper? Why did you take my bird?"

I stare at him for a moment. How did he know I—Well, perhaps I made it a bit obvious. I'm not sure what to do, so I just smile. "You're a clever boy, Leo. Perhaps I haven't done you justice." I shrug and stare out the window at the sky, chalked over with clouds. "The thing is that I don't think I'm the one you're angry with."

"Who else would I possibly be angry with?"

"Lovey."

"Lovey is a bird! She doesn't know any better!"

"Oh," I say, getting down from the table and walking over to her. I get close enough and he lets me touch her silk feathers so faintly, I barely feel them brush my fingertips. "But she's not just a bird, is she?"

"What are you talking about?"

I've done this wrong. _Just leave!_ I want to shout to him. _Just go away and never come back! Never look at me again!_ But something like that…better to be at least somewhat honest. So I lose the attempt at mystery and stare him in the face.

"I can tell she means more to you than I thought now that you're here. So, I'm sorry for encouraging her so. I just really like her is all. She's sweet and followed me around probably because I was sweet to her right back. She's a very special bird. You're very lucky to have her."

Leo looks at me. I'm well aware it just sounded as if I was relinquishing a lover to her true spouse. I rather wish to slap myself, but such antics might provoke odd reactions to my present company. Oh, my life. I've just realized I'm quite horrible at keeping secrets.

"Yeah, I am," he says. "She really just came to you?"

"She did. I hope this doesn't turn me off to you too much." Of course, I know it will exponentially. I've realized I was a mystery to him. He said so in my vision. The only reason he was interested in me was because of my enigma. Now that it's gone, he'll see I'm just me. Just a regular girl. Sort of. I feel exposed this way because I've always hidden in the dark, but in a way, I'm still hiding. "And I do hope you won't talk too harshly of me." Or at all, hopefully.

"No," he states simply. "I have a feeling that even if I did, no one would remember a word of it."

"So you've caught on," I smile lightly and a moment of understanding passes between us.

He turns around to walk out. But then he pauses, curiosity getting the better of him, and turns back to look at me. "How did you get my newspaper running in the first place? And why?"

"Leo," I say. "I didn't help you. I'm just a stupid girl who has to have my way while everyone else suffers. Remember?"

"Ah…I didn't mean…I'm sorry. Really, I am." He looks so sincere, it's suddenly very easy for me to imagine what so many people saw in him.

"Forget it." I step very close to his face. "I mean that quite literally." It's a gamble, I know, but I would quite love to see his expression if I am wrong. I grip his face and crack my head against his so a shot of pain streaks through my head.

 **My eyes open.**

I pant and breathe hard up there on the roof, clinging to the shingles, grains coming off against my palm in brown bits of sand. Merlin, I feel like I've just run a mile without a breath. The cold air grates my skin likes its cheese it would like to spread over the sky. My ears feel oddly disconnected at their tips, the scaphoid fossa, so I can feel my heartbeat through them. If I jumped down now, the shock…Well, it would be too much. I touch my forehead, hot from fighting off the cold. I have to be more careful. Still, I like this boy. He notices me. He sees me. Frieda never takes half as much interest. He's different and I wonder how. How is it that he can see through the spell? _He must be a powerful wizard_ , I think.

Then, something bursts in my heart like the ground above a spring has just been punctured to let healing water bubble and flow out. As much as my head feels like a chisel's being driven through it, I sit up abruptly. If he's powerful enough to see through my spell…maybe he can see through the pond's spell! He could help me!

 _But no_ , I think, sitting back. Even if he could, I can't risk him, a journalist, finding out. The pond might not even cure me. "Still…" I say, turning my head over to Lovey, perched on a vane. "It's my only hope, that pond, Lovey." She hoots and shifts in place, perhaps surprised that I now know her name. I close my eyes and feel the air kiss the very bottom of my lungs before releasing it all, imagining fibers from my pillow leaving my mouth. I always feel asthmatic so high up.

I stare at Lovey for a moment and lean towards her. "But if it wasn't Leo who sent me that page, then who?" I remember Leo's words in the vision. _How did you get her to even touch you? She only sits on my dad and me._ "Leo's father?" I wonder. "What've I got to do with him? Why would he send that to me?" Lovey hooted several times. "Alright, then, Lovey. Time to put you to good use."

I rocket off the roof and make visible dents in the mud below my feet, sinking in around my shoes. Lovey circles like a hawk above my head until I make it to the owlery where she swoops high into the calls of other avifauna. There, I see why. It's a girl I scarcely expected to see in here. Rose. She doesn't seem to have noticed me yet, standing still and staring hard at her wand.

"Okay, Rose, you can do this. You have to pass the OWLs. Oh, haha, practicing for the OWLs in an owlery. Hilarious, Rose. You're a real stand up, you are."

I can't help, but smile to myself. Rose is certainly pretty and better at potions than most fifth years. Still, she always seems to muck up whatever spell she's doing. I find it positively charming.

"Alright, aguamenti!" she shouts, pointing her wand to the wall. A few orange squirts escape the stick before it fizzles out into a trail of sloppy bubbles. "Ugh!"

"Having some trouble?"

Rose flashes around. "How long have you been standing there?!"

"How long have you been trying to do spells with a wand that hasn't chose you?"

She looks down at it. "Erm…I suppose it hasn't, no, but none of the wands in the shop wanted me. None of them. He just gave me this one."

"Hmmm…I suppose you'll just have to make your own."

"Make my—I can't make my own!"

"No, I suppose you can't. I couldn't imagine you being the cleverest witch in the school with a highly intelligent mother and forest full of magical creatures with which to make one."

Rose turned red as a cherry tomato. "I'm not the cleverest witch in the school."

"Alright," I say, smiling.

"And the centaurs…well, I'm too old for them to spare now…"

"True," I nod, shuffling through the parchment until I find some ink.

"And the wood, well, Merlin, where would I get…well, there is vine wood out there, isn't there? Oh, but who'd come with me?"

"Maybe Patricia and Albus," I suggest, dipping the quill and starting to scratch out my letter.

"Patricia and…Oh, but they're always fighting! And Albus would never go with me. He'd tell Hugo and Hugo's such a goody-two-shoes, he'd tell McGonagall."

"Not if Patricia's going."

"Hm? How can you tell?"

"Oh, I can tell. Do you know about making wands?"

"Ought to, I've read most every book in the library on it! Every book in the library period. I read quite fast. That's why I'm so good at History of Magic. Whipped through the textbook like that." She snaps confidently.

"A wonder you're not in Ravenclaw."

"Ah, well, my parents, both Gryffindors, you know. In the blood."

I finish scrawling out my note and roll it up. "Lovey!" I call.

"Lovey?" Rose asks. "Is that Leo's bird?"

"No," I lie.

"Didn't think so."

I manage to tie the note onto Lovey's foot and feed her a treat from the box on the edge of the desk. "Bring this to whoever sent me that page," I whisper to her. I lift my arm high and she takes off, swooping high out the window. _Perhaps that's why she stayed so long_ , I think. _To get a reply._

"Well, goodbye, then," I say.

"Oh, yes, goodbye. What've you sent off?"

"Just a letter," I promise. I wave as I walk out the door, surely dropping from her mind the instant I'm out of view.


	9. Into the Woods of Certain Death

Chapter 9-Into the Woods of Certain Death

Albus set down The Quibbler into his lap and quirked an eyebrow. "You want to do _what_?"

"Make my own wand," Rose repeated.

Albus rubbed his head. "Forgive me. I did hear you the first time. I really meant _why_."

"You know why! Look at me, Albus! My wand hates me and none others will take me. Then, I got this idea. I'll make my _own_. Surely a wand made with my own two hands will help me!"

Albus sighed. This all seemed strangely familiar. "Listen, Rose, it's a smashing idea and knowing you, you'll be able to do it, but where'll you get the ingredients?"

"The Forbidden Forest."

"Who would help yo—Oh, no."

"Oh, yes."

"You are not involving me in this."

"Oh, is the son of Harry Potter afraid of the dark?"

"I'm more afraid of a centaur arrow sticking out of my gut, so you can forget about it. Look, I don't care if you go. Just find someone else."

"But you know the forest better than I do! You've been in it scores of times for detention!"

Albus narrowed his eyes at her. "As amusing as you may find that statement, I've only been within Hogwarts territory and I'll assume that's not where you intend on going."

"Oh, c'mon! When did you get to be such a sour puss?"

"When Lysander spent a week in the hospital wing for a spider bite." He made a point of making as much noise as possible shaking the paper back before his face so she'd know he meant to read it.

"My cousin the middle-aged man," she grumbled. Rose crossed her arms and whipped back her shimmering red hair. "Alright then," she sighed. "Guess I'll tell Patricia we're at it alone, then."

Albus paused and peeked over the paper as she turned away. "Hold on." She stopped and swiveled back around to face him, raising her eyebrows. "Er…Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen is going with you?"

Rose tried to suppress a crooked smile that chiseled its way into the right side of her face. She nodded. "Oh, she jumped on the opportunity. She loves the animals. You know Care of Magical Creatures is her best subject. That's why I'm bringing her and all. She can often soothe the savage beast. I admire her for that."

"Er…so the both of you are going then? To look for wand ingredients?"

"That was the plan."

On one hand, he didn't want to get eaten, but on another…Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen, you know?

 _"_ _Albus where are you?"_

 _"_ _Over here!"_

 _"_ _Where's Rose?"_

 _"_ _Who knows? She's gone. It's just you and me."_

 _The vision of Patricia fell into his arms. "Oh Albus, I—"_

 _He pressed a finger to her lips. "You talk too much."_

"You know, I heard her talking about you the other day," Rose continued, snapping Al back to life. "That's really the main reason I asked. She likes adventure. She thought you did too. That's really the only reason I asked."

Al stared at her for a moment, stuttering a bit in his mind. "She was talking about me?"

"Mmmhmmm," Rose smiled, walking slowly away.

Oh, in the name of Merlin… "Rose!"

She turned around as if surprised. "What is it?"

"Er…you really want me to come that bad?"

Her face lit up. "Awesome! I'll go tell Patricia! Remember, Saturday at five!"

She scurried off as Leo shook his head beside him.

"Wha-What's that face?" Albus asked. Leo didn't stop staring scornfully. "What?! I really want to go into the —"

"—forest of complete and certain death," Leo finished. "I know, I know. I get it. I too look forward to getting my arms eaten by three-headed dogs and blinded by ghouls one day."

"Well, what was I supposed to do?! Let them go alone?! Hugo would've killed me!"

"Hugo is two years younger than you and Rose. I think you could've fought the bloke off."

"My father went through that forest all the time. I've gone through it dozens of times for detention. I think we'll be okay."

"Correction, mate, your father went before the Battle of Hogwarts when the animals were tamer and you went in the first section of forest. It's a lot thicker than most people think."

"I think we can do it."

"Can I write your obituary for the second issue of the paper?"

"No."

"That's alright. I'll do it anyway, just in case. I promise you, it will be beautiful."

"I'm so sure."

* * *

Albus stared at Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen with interest. He'd never seen a person so laden with gear in all his life. And he had no idea what any of it was. Nets looped around her waist, sticks clattered against her thy, a loose hat held her hair up. Her clothing was that of long, tight pants and tall boots with some strange shirt without sleeves and tons of pockets.

"It's called a vest," Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen told him. "You've never seen muggles wearing them? Mother's a muggle. Gave it to me years ago."

Rose was still in her Hogwarts jumper, but had an interesting array of bottles hanging from her clothing and a giant backpack. At first glance, he'd inwardly made fun of the two girls, but the more he thought about it, the less silly they seemed in their odd apparel. They clearly had something to protect themselves with whereas he only had his wand. Wait. Did that make him the damsel in distress in this situation? No, that couldn't be right.

"Can I go back to my dorm?" he asked. "You know, grab some mace or garlic or something? I didn't realize we were going bear hunting."

"No can do," Rose said, clipping a belt around her waist. "We need to get out by sunset. We can't waste any time."

"But it's five in the morning!"

"And what if we get lost? Hm? The woods are ten times more dangerous at night. We'd need time to navigate our way out. I figure by the time we get past Hogwarts territory; the sun will have gone up."

Albus looked behind him. There was a mysterious figure atop the roof overhanging a low window, her hair flashing up in a wave of shadowy tendrils. She gave him the creeps, like she was just distracting him as tiny hands reached out from the darkness from within the forest to grab at his limbs and pull him further inward.

"Listen…" he said tentatively, but when he turned back, the girls were already a solid distance in the forest.

"You say something?" Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen called without turning back.

He didn't want to go, but he certainly wasn't staying here. "Wait!" he shouted, frantically scrambling through the mountains of dead leaves after them. By the time he reached them, his only physical indicator that he'd reached the right spot was the massive efforts of the two females around him as their supplies clanged around them like a baby was banging copper pots together. "Oh, in the name of Merlin, why don't you just put all that stuff in a bag?"

"Accessibility," Rose said simply.

"Okay, STOP!" the sounds paused around him. "By the time we reach the edge of Hogwarts' territory, the entire forest is going to know we're here!"

"Er…he's got a point there, Rose," Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen agreed.

"How else are we supposed to carry our things?" she asked.

"Just put an extension charm on your bag."

"Oh, just put an extension charm on you bag," she mimicked. "Albus, if I could do NEWT level magic, do you really think I'd be going to all this trouble to make a new wand?"

"Alright, then, give me a bag."

"Can you really do that kind of magic?" Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen asked, seemingly impressed.

"If I couldn't, I wouldn't have come here with just a wand." A bag landed on his face. "Thank you," he said pointedly.

He was able to put the spell on the bag after just one try. It was impressive even to him considering he'd never done that a day in his life. All those hours spelling bags dozens of times to hide candies had finally paid off. Little by little, he collected the things attached to the girls, though Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen refused to remove her net and Rose her bottles, claiming if she couldn't see the labels or color in the dark, their placement on her jumper would tell her. He conceded and from then on they moved surprisingly quickly down the paths. With less bulk, it was breeze waltzing through. After a little over an hour of traipsing in silence, Patricia stopped.

"What is it?" Rose whispered.

"This is the barrier."

"What? How can you tell?" Albus asked.

"Watch." She took a few steps forward. At first, Albus noticed nothing unusual. But then, she turned towards them. For a split second, her face was a still canvas painted a translucent shade of pink from the sunlight's rising glow. She looked pretty there for a moment with curls of brown hair he'd never noticed spiraling out from her hat to cover her face. Then, her features distorted ever so slightly as if he was watching a wave of heat rise off the driveway at home and ripple the details of the surrounding neighborhood for his eyes.

"Merlin," he breathed. "I've never seen this."

"You've never gone out this far," she told him. "I have."

"Wait…you have?"

"Of course."

He looked to Rose. "THEN WHY THE BLOODY HELL DID YOU INVITE ME?!"

"Why the 'bloody hell' did you say yes?" Rose responded smugly.

"She's right," Paticia Cassiopeia McLaggen said with a grin. "The first rule of doing something dangerous is to always bring someone who doesn't want to do it."

Albus's face fell. "You aren't serious?"

Patricia shrugged, enjoying her current power over the boy. "Let's go."

"Wha-but—"

"Unless you want to go back. Through the darkness. Alone."

Sigh. "No."

"I thought you were a Gryffindor."

"He is," Rose replied for him. That's what makes this so pathetic."

Albus gripped his wand, but didn't say a word. He knew they were right. A Ravenclaw or even Hufflepuff would've been a better for him, but the hat placed him in Gryffindor for some reason. Probably just because the rest of his family was in that house.

As he walked with them, he opened the charmed bag and took out the Quick Quotes Quill Rose used for History of Magic. "I pay attention in my other classes," she'd promised. "But that's the class I always do homework in. I can't very well listen to Binns and write potions essays at the same time."

"Rose, what in the name of Merlin would you need a Quick Quotes Quill for in the forest?"

"For you, silly. You should write an article about this in Leo's paper!"

"You want me to write an article about trekking through the _Forbidden_ Forest, emphasis on the Forbidden? We'll get detention for the rest of the year!"

"Oh. Suppose I hadn't thought of that. Well, write it for now and we'll fib a bit later on. How does that sound?"

"Ah…I suppose. How does it work?"

"Just say what you want it to write."

"I don't want you guys knowing what I'm writing!"

Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen gave him a pointed look. "You realize the entire school's going to be reading Leo's newspaper?"

"Ah…yeah. Suppose I hadn't thought that through much, it's just Leo needed me for it. Had to get enough people."

"Well, I would've done it if he'd asked me," Rose said.

"So would I," Patricia Cassiopeia McLagged agreed.

"Why didn't you tell us he needed more people?"

Albus thought for a moment, remembering the comment Leo had made on the Hogwarts Express. _I hate girls. They're so stupid_. He'd never seen Leo around girls much, but he'd never full out declared his misogyny or ever really expressed anything but lack of interest. Somehow, the simple comment made his heart clench as he thought about the other day when he'd been with Leo. What he was ranting about, Albus had no real idea, but he could still remember sitting at the desk watching Leo as he paced back and forth, wand drawn, looking as if he might strike something down at any moment.

 _"_ _I just don't know why she did it. If she likes me, why take my bird? Oh, I know! It's because no one notices her and she just wants attention! She wants to be pretty, I bet! Mysterious. And my bird! What sensible person—she's not sensible! Transfiguration! Can you believe it?!"_

 _"_ _Uh…"_

 _"_ _I know! I hate her! I hate them all!"_

He assumed someone had used Lovey for delivering a letter at the owlery by mistake, unaware that the bird didn't belong to the school. Leo, though, was usually a pretty reasonable guy. It wasn't like him to foam at the mouth over something so trivial. Still, he couldn't imagine what else it was and certainly didn't want to get Leo worked up again by mentioning it. It was hard for him to not think that this had something to do with something at home. He remembered asking about his summer, but Leo had brushed off the topic easily. Every time after, Albus hadn't noticed until now, but Leo had kept doing the same thing. Albus didn't know a thing about Leo's summer even though the bloke usually couldn't shut up about his out-of-school activities.

"He doesn't know you two very well."

"Never stopped him from doing something before."

She was right. Something was off about him. All the years he'd known Leo; he was only angry within reason. He got ticked at their teachers and when someone antagonized him, but now he seemed to be angry at half of the student body for no reason. Albus had to wonder what happened that changed him over the summer.


	10. Hogsmeade Encounter

Chapter 10-Hogsmeade Encounter

Leo walked with a group of boys he hadn't talked to in ages. All of them being Slytherins, none of his Gryffindor friends cared to join him.

"So, Leo, been meaning to ask," Scorpius started as his friends chatted separately in front. "How's that paper going?"

Leo brightened ten shades on the blustery afternoon day. "Actually really good. I think we might have our first issue by the end of the month. I can't wait for—"

"Right, right," he nodded. "That is good news, but listen, you know anything about that Frieda girl?"

Leo raised his eyebrows. "Frieda? Yeah, we're modest friends. More of acquaintances, really. You know, talk here and there. Not really close, why?"

"So she's a third year?" he asked, ignoring the question.

"Yeah. Why? What's going on?"

"I think she's got a crush on your friend Albus."

Leo knitted his eyebrows. "You do? They're friends now, yeah, but I don't think—"

"Merlin, she's annoying, you know?"

"I guess she can be."

"I mean, like, isn't she full of herself, though?"

"Scorpius, what happened?"

"Frieda…" He lowered his voice, looking over at the rest of the group, not paying an ounce of attention, and leaned in closer to Leo's face. "You ever think there was something wrong with Frieda?"

"Wrong like how?"

"Wrong like she's not like most people. She just loves learning about the filthy little muggles, talking to them and embracing their odd little habits. Encouraging other people to. And haven't you noticed her remembering things no witch has any business remembering?"

Leo paused there, staring at Scorpius for a moment. He hated to think that anything was wrong with Frieda, but the fact of the matter was, he had to agree with Scorpius. Something was off about the girl. No one else seemed to notice it, or maybe they were just hiding it like Leo, but she paid attention to things he never expected her to. Not to mention, he hadn't noticed before now, she was the only girl he had ever considered a friend. She didn't bother him like the others, though perhaps that was just because she was three years younger than him.

He kept walking, not trying to catch up with the group on their way to the Hogs Head. He didn't want them hearing this. "Who else have you told?"

"Just you," Scorpius promised. "This kind of thing I didn't want to spread around."

"This kind of thing? What do you think it is, exactly?"

"I don't know, Leo. I just—"

"Stop telling lies, Scorpius! If you want to let me in on something, you've got to tell me everything. I'm going to be a journalist, remember? I'm good at seeing half-truths."

Scorpius's eyes darkened. "Forget it for now. If I get something more to go off of, I'll tell you. I just thought—Forget it." He ran to catch up with the others, leaving Leo wondering about what exactly Scorpius thought and why he would bring it to a boy he barely talked to anymore. Ever since he and Albus had gotten closer as friends, Scorpius hadn't done much more than acknowledge him in the hallways. So what was his game? Why tell him, of anyone?

Leo ran to the opposite side of the group from Scorpius as he sorted out his thoughts. When they entered the Hog's Head, the warm atmosphere enveloped him in the sweet smells of butter beer and biscuits and all thoughts of Frieda dropped from his head like a scuba weight. He sat at the table and enjoyed listening and contributing to the boisterous conversation. It was hard to not feel a bit sleepy in such an atmosphere where the food began to weigh down his stomach and the drink, his mind.

Eventually, the conversation drifted towards Zabini's new girlfriend, the eloquent and beautiful Natasha Patil. Leo, along with everybody else, couldn't seem to fabricate within their minds how she'd fallen for a bloke like Zabini who, if no one's here to hear, was about as much a looker as a hedgehog.

"So, Leo," Sean asked. "What about your love life?"

Leo rubbed his head. They just loved to tease him about this because they knew it made him uncomfortable. "Still no one, guys."

"Lies!" Crab declared. "I seen him staring at someone the other day."

"Perhaps I was daydreaming."

"About snogging her?"

"Cut it out. You know I don't do girls."

"No one 'doesn't do' girls, Mate. Something's up with you."

"Perhaps he doesn't swing that way," someone mentioned.

"Perhaps he doesn't swing either way," Crab grinned.

"Forget it." He hated this. Why didn't they get it? They were all a bunch of idiots. All women ever did was lie and manipulate and let their pride get in the way everything. The last thing he ever wanted to do was have one clinging to his arm. If his nightmare was that, the ideal dream was using his wand to cut the girl's arm off her body so he'd be free. Free from that suffocation he saw so often with 'happy' couples.

"Oh, I get it," Crab mocked. "Just want to wait for the girls to chase after you is that it? Coward. You're not a Gryffindor!"

"Guys! Would you get off it? I don't do women! No girls now or ever are going to chase after me."

A pair of hands slammed down on the table, surprising the entire group, none of which had seen the girl come up to the table. Leo's eyes followed the arms to a face he scarcely thought he'd ever see. One belonging to Carina Honeycomb.

"Get up," she ordered, staring directly into his eyes. "Now."

He paused there, unmoving for a moment. "Carina?"

"Follow me or I swear you'll regret it." With that, she ran out of the Hogs Head to the hoots of Leo's table.

"Go get her, Wespurt!" Zabini hollered as Leo ran after her into the cold.

He skidded to a stop when he saw her waiting directly at the entrance. She grabbed his hand and sprang forward, dodging into an alleyway, crouching low, pressing a finger to her lips, and craning her neck around the corner as she leaned her body against the brick wall. He leaned over her to look around the corner just in time to see a group of several goblins turn the corner. The girl turned her head up and rose, pushing her face so closely towards his; she could've kissed him easily. It straightened him out. Hand clenched tightly in her fingers, she pulled him forward to walk briskly down the alleyway. "My name is Carina Honeycomb," she said, scanning the street before heading out, "though I expect you already know that."

"Where are we going?" he asked quizzically.

"The graveyard at the opposite edge of the Forbidden Forest. They won't look there for a while. At least I hope not. If they have something to track us…" As she talked, her voice smoothed out, becoming less harsh, but just as urgent.

"They?"

"Quickly. I can't. Not here. You've got to answer my questions first."

"Hold on." He yanked her back in the middle of the road so they came to an abrupt halt. "Tell me what's going on, now!"

She turned back to him, hair a raven's color black; her eyes a cold abyss to match. "Leo Wespurt, I have long known our true meeting was inevitable, but it cannot happen here. There are people who'd like to see you with a knife in your belly."

The way she said that made him shiver uncontrollably. She must've known somehow it would have this effect because she used the opportunity to spring forward into a pace just below running where her feet skimmed the pavement as they went. She gracefully careened around shops, dodging in and out of doorways, not at all bothered by the human attached to her arm, struggling to find his footing. Whoever she was, she knew how to sneak around. He had to give her kudos for that. He'd never seen someone trek so quietly. They moved so swiftly and urgently without noise or sidelong glances; he was sure as he was breathing that not a soul in the busy area noticed them. It was as if they were traveling through a glass channel that split the air so the wizards on either side walked and stared straight through them. It was an odd feeling, being completely unseen. It'd never happened to him before. Finally, they scrambled into the woods, past hundreds of gravestones and the Battle of Hogwarts memorial. She flung him against a large stone so the breath was knocked out of him and he slid to the frozen ground.

"I'm sorry!" she said. "Are you okay?"

"What in the name of Merlin was that all about?!"

"Goblins," she replied, towering over him in an ice-cold statue of darkness. "Now, show me what you've got."

"What I've got? I don't—"

"Sure you do. The Living Pearl. Where is it?"

"The Living Pearl? I don't know what that is, let alone have it!"

She kneeled down in front of him, looking deep into his eyes. He felt his skin prickle and heartbeat race with that stare, so raw and lifeless as time, beating forward, a life waiting to end. "I know you've been keeping it secret, but I promise I'm here to help. Please tell me everything. From the beginning, if you can."

"Listen, girl. I have no idea what you're talking about. I haven't been keeping anything a secret." Which wasn't really true, the more he thought about it. His summer, Albus's crush, Lorcan's reaction to his tea readings, Rose, Albus, and Patricia entering the Forbidden Forest, and now Frieda.

The girl's eyes examined his face carefully before squinting. "You really don't know what you've got?"

"I haven't got anything!"

"You do," she said. "You just don't know it." She took out her wand and pointed it at him.

"AAAAH! Yeah! Yeah, sure, yeah, I've got something! Merlin, just don't hurt me, woman!"

She lowered her wand to give him a light smile, showing a light glow in her eyes for the slightest moment that reminded him of the sunrise. Her hair colored brown and reflected the sunlight filtering through the trees instead of absorbing it endlessly as a void. "I won't hurt you," she told him. "I promise." Then she raised her wand towards him and said, "Reveal your secrets."

She pocketed her wand and Leo sat there expectantly. Kind of anticlima—A light shot through his jacket, making it look as if his stomach was glowing. He lifted his shirt and stared at his abdomen. At his belly button, a glowing white light was there as if he'd just gotten some sort of magical pregnancy. Then, without warning, the light dissipated and went out. "Wha-What did you do?"

"I did nothing, but show you what is there. Attached to the inside layer of skin, there is the Living Pearl."

"The Living Pearl?"

She sighed, sitting cross-legged before him. "The Living Pearl is a goblin relic that enables its user to have enhanced natural abilities. It has been lost for centuries until you picked it up."

He covered his stomach and sat up to look at her. "No I didn't."

"You must have. You have it inside you. The goblins have been after that pearl for decades. Once they found out you had it, they had only to wait until you were unprotected by Hogwarts' charms to find you and remove the Living Pearl for themselves."

"How do you know? Wait, is this why you've been avoiding me? What did you do with my bird?!"

"Lovey is safely with your father."

"Did he _send_ you or something? I'm so confused."

"I promise you, the feeling is mutual."

"You seem to know enough."

"Enough to keep you alive, at least. When we get out of Hogsmeade, you'll be temporarily safe, but the goblins will eventually find a way to get to you. I wish I could've prevented you from coming here in the first place. I just couldn't find you."

"Who are you?"

"Carina Honeycomb."

"No, but really."

She looked at her hands. "I can't tell you that."

"What?"

"I wish I could. I really do, but…"

"But what?"

"But the little lady's not inclined to tell you, now is she?" He whipped around to see a gnarled nose of plastic, skin coated in boils.

"Yes, that's quite rude, ain't it?" another voice said as a team of four goblins circled them.

Leo was about to rush to his feet, but the first goblin kicked his nose so the bones cracked and he fell to the ground in a fit of pain. "Leo!" the girl shouted. He felt her rush to his side and place a hand on his chest. "Are you alright?"

When he brought his head back up, blood poured into his hands. Through the red, he saw the goblin point a knotted finger from which light pointed directly into his stomach like a sniper rifle. The girl grasped his shoulder, knowing four goblins could easily overpower two adolescent wizards. "Now, if you please," the goblin smiled as his three associates pointed elongated, dirty fingernails directly at Leo. "Hand over the Living Pearl."


	11. The Mist

Chapter 11-The Mist

"Albus?!" Rose ran through piles of leaves she didn't recognize, jumped over branches and logs. The farther she went, the more the forest darkened. The more she ran, the more the arms of the trees reached out and yanked at her fiery red hair, urging her to stay a while. "Patricia!" She didn't know what had happened. Seconds ago, she'd been walking with Albus and Pat silently through the forest, searching for a tree suitable for a wand, watching out for dangerous creatures hiding in the brush. The more she thought, though, the more she realized that she'd been running frantically for far longer than just seconds. Minutes, scores of them passing in this one moment.

The duff played tricks on her, showing silhouettes of scruffy haired boys with glasses and tall girls with wide hats and nets around their waists. The roots tripped her like some hooligan schoolboy as the leaves laughed like the pretty girl he was trying to impress. The two drew a wire out on the ground and she tumbled over it, but just as she was about to catch herself with her feet and hands, she saw the ground. So far below. A cliff. Before she could fall, she acted fast, drawing her good wand and shouting, "Stupefy!" Any other wizard would've laughed, but she knew exactly what would happen with her troublesome wand and closed her eyes as the backlashing explosion threw her through the trees.

She laid back in the tangle of broken and strong branches high in the tree. "Ow." A relatively short, sixteen-inch twig fell onto her stomach. She looked around at the tree surrounding her and inspected the leaves floating gracefully to her stomach. "How very convenient. Birch wood: for new beginnings. I think I've found my wand. Now, where are Albus and Pat?"

* * *

"And so we continued our journey through the black expanse, watching carefully for any creatures that might care to eat us. Rose—Wait a minute, where is Rose? No, don't write that!" The Quick Quote Quill paused on the page. He looked around. "Oh, don't tell me they branched off earlier on? I could've sworn they were right here."

"Look! There's one!" a voice whispered from behind him. Albus swiveled in the spot to meet…nothing in particular, actually.

"Oh, it's far too skinny! No wizard would be dumb enough to come in 'ere alone! Let's see if 'is friends are fatter!" another gruff voice said.

"This is the mist, Darius. 'e's not going to find his friends until 'e gets out of it. We could take 'im back to the lair and get another one later."

"But then them spiders'll all know somethin's up and we'll have to share the fat one!"

"Hello?" Albus asked. "Who's there?" The voices silenced. "I'm not going to let you eat me, by the way."

"What makes 'im think 'e 'as a choice in the matter?"

"Darius, shush! He'll hear us."

"I have a wand!" Albus threatened. "Show yourselves or I'll stun the both of you!"

"I thought their spells only worked on one person at a time."

"How am I supposed to know? 'agrid barely ever used 'is umbrella. This boy 'asn't even got one."

"Maybe a wand's different from an umbrella?"

"Naw. 'agrid called the umbrella a wand sometimes."

"Maybe it's a different type of wand."

"Alright, then, let's settle this. Sir, is your wand called an umbrella?"

"Um…no," Albus frowned.

"See, there you are. Not an umbrella."

"I didn't say it was! You're twisting my words to be right again! You always do that!"

"I did no such thing."

"You are a filthy liar, you are!"

Albus did a double take when he saw his Quick Quotes Quill scrawling. "Are you seriously writing this?" It paused, and then continued writing his last statement. "Ugh. That's it. Accio enemies!" He flourished his wand and shot the targets into the trees where they tumbled into a heap on the ground.

"Why, I'll—I'll get you!" the one little man with quite a lengthy beard sprouting from his chin shouted, wielding a pickax considerably larger than his head.

Albus's eyes widened. "You're dwarves!"

"Aye! And we don't 'preciate being thrown around like piles 'a trash, thank you very much! Sloane! Sloane, move your bloomin' arse!"

Sloane picked himself off the ground and eyed Albus. "The nerve 'a this one! Eh? Summoning us like a couple 'a broom sticks!"

"But we don't have any dwarves in the Forbidden Forest," Albus told them. "They live in the mountains where they can mine minerals and hide underground. They don't really like wizards."

"To be fair, no one really likes wizards," Sloane said. "No offence."

"How could you possibly have not meant offense by that?"

"Well ain't 'e Mr. Observant!" Darius crowed. "Give 'im a bloody metal!"

"Wizards haven't dared entered this part 'a the forest since the Battle 'a Hogwarts," Sloane told him. "Loads 'a creatures came back after them and the Ministry maggots stopped harassin' 'em. Now we eat whatever we can find 'round here."

"But why aren't you underground?"

"So we may 'a been banished for a slight misunderstandin'…Really wasn't our fault."

"Those scum suckers can lick my arse!" Darius averred. "If I ever get my hands on 'em, they'll be chopped to pieces!"

"You know about the dwarves, then? Who's the current king in Switzerland?" Albus asked.

"An interesting story there—" Sloane started.

"'ey! Don't you tell 'im nothing!" Darius shouted.

"Oh, for all that's good and humble, who's 'e going to tell?"

"Actually, I'm part of a school newspaper," Albus admitted. "I could put this in."

"You put this in: Thyk of Rasenburry is a right git of a dwarf! Right up there with Dwain and Igor of Gnomeshingle!"

"Whatever did Igor do?"

"Married Louis!"

"Oh, for all that's good and humble, you never asked her out once! All those years, you just stared at 'er. She never knew you existed!"

"Oh, forget it. Let's just kill 'im!"

"If you do, I can't put that message in the newspaper," Albus noted.

They paused. "He does have a point there, Darius," Sloan acknowledged. "Besides, we can't kill him, now we've been introduced."

"We don't know 'is name!"

"Albus."

"See, there we are!"

"It's funny. I thought this place would tear me limb from limb, but I've been in here for hours without seeing a soul," Albus noted.

"Aye, the animals are aggressive at the borderlines," Sloane agreed. "But that's just to keep the wizards on their toes so they won't mess around in here. Really, the inside's hit or miss with danger. Pretty big forest in a whole."

"Would you stop telling 'im all that!" Darius shouted. "You're givin' away our secrets to a journalist!"

"I won't tell anyone if you can help me find my friends."

The two eyed him suspiciously. "Sidebar," Sloane said simply. To Albus's confused face, the two scurried off to a nearby tree and turned their backs to him in a two-person huddle.

"I think we should leave 'im 'ere," Darius said.

"Inclined to agree with you," Sloane nodded. "If 'e's not a meal and 'e knows all this, 'e's no real use to us."

"You know I can hear you two," Albus interrupted.

The two narrowed their eyes at him before skirting out of sight. Albus rolled his eyes, standing there with his arms crossed as the two conversed out of hearing range. Perhaps it would've been smarter if he'd said nothing. The two finally came back into sight, smiling a little too widely.

"We've decided to help you," Sloane announced.

"Fantastic. Which way?"

"We'll lead you through. Folks get lost too easily in this forest. Another reason not to return," Sloane added.

The group walked for a while, but it was hard for Albus to keep track of the time here. Everything seemed to make his mind fill with fog, so he could barely see a minute passing on his internal clock. "So you know where they are?" he asked. "You've seen them?"

"Er…past the mist," Sloane insisted. "We'll never find them in that monster."

"How far until we get out?"

"Just there!" he said, stopping, waving for Albus to follow. "You see that?"

Albus stepped farther and farther past the dwarves, squinting his eyes a bit, but couldn't make out a single shape. "No, I don't see—"

"GERONOMO!" the two shouted in unison, shoving at his legs, so he tumbled down the rocky cliff.

* * *

Patricia rounded the bend. Something was off about this. She wasn't sure what, though. She felt like maybe…someone was supposed to be with her? The faces of a red-haired, beautiful girl and boy with bright green eyes and unruly black hair entered her mind. She couldn't seem to pinpoint who they were, though. Her mind felt relaxed and lazy as if she were sunbathing on the lawn back home. But that was crazy. The weather was freezing. The leaves rustled in bright autumn colors around her. She touched her head, realizing the hat had fallen out and her hair had waterfalled down her head in a mess of wavy brown strands.

She closed her eyes and stepped forward. Something was right about this place. She just knew that if she kept walking, she wouldn't fall or bump into any obstacle. She'd be fine, stepping over the dry, frozen October ground. The forest floor seemed so far below her, the farther she went, like she was floating while still touching the ground. She felt her arms rising as if filled with an air lighter than air. The word came to her lips and stayed there without them moving: _helium_. Like little elongated balloons, they drifted up. And then, her fingers felt something. Soft and delicate, smooth as silk and still more elegant. She could feel warmth radiating off the prickly cloth as she spread her hands over it.

She opened her eyes and smiled upon seeing an animal beneath her hands. It glowed white light that oscillated every part of her body. She moved forward to stroke its head, running her fingers down its long nose. "You're a unicorn," she realized. "I've learned all about you in my Magical Creatures class. You only come to maidens." She felt calm, scratching its neck and smoothing over its mane. She reached her hand up and touched the swirling horn rising from its forehead like a giant piece of hard candy. It felt like a freshly brushed tooth. She giggled at the thought of someone sitting on its back, grumbling as they carefully ran a toothbrush over the horn. For a moment, the someone was small and indistinct, but then she saw who it was. Albus.

Then, she snapped back to life. Albus and Rose! How could she have forgotten? They were still somewhere in the forest! She couldn't, for the life of her, remember leaving them, though. Her mind just seemed to have wandered into a mist and then come out at the silly image. Funny, though. She didn't feel alone. Not her with this creature. She looked at the unicorn.

"I'm lost. Will you help me find my friends?"

It showed no signs that it understood her other than cantering off leisurely to her left. She jogged to keep up with it as it navigated clearly through the brush, its smooth white coat radiating pure light. Such light made the surrounding atmosphere pitch black so she felt as though she was in a dream, following a spirit through the deadly forest's dark backdrop despite the fact that it was midday and the sun had earlier been shining brightly through the trees.

At last, the unicorn paused. "What is it?" she asked, touching its mane. It turned its head back. "I don't see anything."

"GERONOMO!"

Suddenly, something crashed into her with an overwhelming force. She grasped at the unicorn, but fell back with nothing but a clump of glowing white hair in her fingers. She screamed as she fell backwards, deep into the darkness. Then, something caught her. It felt like a net of elastic, sticky and bouncing up and down as the force from her fall made the strings pressing into her back vibrate. Something groaned on top of her. "I'm going to kill those guys."

Wait a minute. "Albus?"

The body on top of her shifted atop hers. Through the beams of midday light streaking through the trees, she could clearly see the dark fabric of a boy's robes getting caught in the gummy structure to the point where his left leg could barely move. Al's face came slowly up to meet hers, so theirs eyes met in a dangerous clash of emerald and pecan. "Hey, Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen," he smiled awkwardly.

"Do you think 'e's dead?" a voice asked from above.

"Should be," another said. "If 'e's not, the spider's will get 'im, sure's day."

"Right, right."

For a moment the two paused, listening to their footsteps drown in the distance. Patricia stopped and looked at the boy above her.

"ALBUS POTTER, GET THE BLOODY HELL OFF OF ME!"

"Oh, like I have a choice."

"Did you get us in here?"

"Me? What were you doing on the side of a cliff?"

"Following a unicorn."

"Of course. Yes. A unicorn. Why didn't I think of that sooner?"

"Well, what were you doing?"

"I was making some dwarf friends."

"Same ones that pushed you off the cliff?"

"It's not a perfect relationship."

"Ugh."

"So, Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen...You know, I kind of like the middle name. Can I call you Cassy?"

"Really? No one likes my middle name. Sure."

"So, Cassy…"

"What?"

"We're _alone_ together."

She knitted her eyebrows. "Yeah."

"And we're on top of one another."

"Oh, now I see the Gryffindor."

"What's that's supposed to mean?"

She threw her head back and laughed, feeling the weight of his body move above her as her diaphragm wriggled. "You're asking me out while we're in the middle of the Forbidden Forest in the net of a deadly spider in a rather intimate position."

"Asking you—pfft. Pfft! Asking you out. Please! I'm not—"

"Mmmhmmm. Whatever you say."

"I'm—" The net shifted. "What was that?"

"Probably a spider that wants to eat us."

"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT SO NONCHALAUNTLY?!"

"The key in situations like these—"

"AAAAAAAAH!"

"—is to remain—"

"SLOANE, DARIUS, ROSE, SOMEBODY HELP US! PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF MERLIN, HELP!"

"—completely calm."

A voice hissed in her mind, drowning out Albus's shouts to his far off cousin. _Wizards! Oh, I haven't had wizards in...TEN YEARS! YES! SO LONG IT'S BEEN!_ It punctured the sides of her brain and squeezed like a sharp pincer with each word. She could feel the sides of the net contract and curl, twisting, so she and Albus were encased in its gooey white strings. _And two! Joys of joys! I shouldn't tell my brothers and sisters. No. I'll savor them for myself. Yes. YES!_ The voice grew more excited as it spoke, throwing its infatuation with flavor into its ardent spinning so Pat's head began to spin from being tousled around in the net. Her sides cramped and squeezed. Albus pressed tighter against her. Her own ribs felt two sizes too small. _There we are! I should tie up the others…but I can't risk them finding these tasty things and eating them for themselves! Yes! I'll eat them now! All for me! Yes! YES!_ Pat squirmed as she felt the connection lift from her mind. Albus's head fitted close next to her so she could feel his hot breath on her neck.

Then, someone shouted "STUPIFY!" Something exploded beneath them. The fifteen-year-olds fell through a hole in the net, bungying through the air until the sticky fibers of the spider's web discharged them into the frozen forest floor. Flames licked the ground in front of them where the giant hairy arachnid screeched its indignation.

It took a moment for a the two to recover from the blow, shielding their faces from the heat of the fire. "Albus did you cast a spell?" Patricia asked, for a moment impressed that he'd be able to do a spell with his arms tied, but the boy shook his head.

"It wasn't me."

Something snapped in the trees above and a figure slid down the steep cliff and leaped in front of them, shouting a tickling curse but only creating more flames to block them from their enemy. The figure of a girl with wild, blazing hair to match the fire stood tall before them. She turned back and smiled. "Oh, there you are. Thought I'd lost you two. I found a good wand material. Birch. Haven't got a core yet, though."

"I've some unicorn hair," Patricia offered, holding the mane's clump up in her damp hand.

"That's perfect! Thank you!"

Albus was already at his feet, giving out a hand to help Patricia to hers. "Something tells me we should get out of here."

"Right you are," Rose nodded. "So, which way?"

Albus looked around frantically. "Albus…" Patricia pointed through the trees at a swarm of dark shapes swarming in the far back of the forest, crawling forward in a single mass like a lethal dust cloud. Fear crawled in her heart and clawed at it as she thought of their fangs injecting their venom into her side, freezing her limbs so she crumpled in a heap on the ground.

Without hesitation, Albus pointed his wand deep into the forest and shouted, "Guide me!" A light shot out of his wand and disappeared into the darkness. Rose ripped a potion off her vest and threw it past the flames so the bottle shattered against a rock. A lion's head emerged from the inferno and roared. The ground quaked beneath them in a vibration that made their eardrums burst all while watching the beast rocket towards the swarm of spiders. His wand still level, Albus and Rose ran. He paused and looked back. "What are you doing?!" He ran back and latched his arm around her unmoving form, shaking her from her frozen state. Then, her legs were moving. He was propelling her forward with the strength of his left arm, clinging tight to her waist. For a moment, it felt as if she was flying, there in that forest, lighter than air as the horde closed in further and further.


	12. The Happy Accident

Chapter 12-The Happy Accident

I hug a jacket tightly around my body. The cold bites right through me. It reaches like a hand into my intestines and twists up like a ghastly set of vines. I bring Leo's body close to me. I can't remember being this close to another human since hugging my mother just before entering the Hogwarts Express for the third time.

I stare at the man before me. No, not man. Goblin. He sneers at me and grins wickedly at Leo, teeth barred in grotesque sets of blackened molars.

"I would give it to you if I could," Leo promises him. "But I don't know how! I didn't even know I had it!"

"She seemed to," the goblin says, gesturing towards me.

A goblin launches towards me, but freezes when I press my wand firmly into his throat. "I don't know how to get the Living Pearl out any better than he does!" I tell them.

"Ah, but how did you know the boy had the Pearl in the first place?"

"Ah…" I falter, sifting through my vision from before. The Shrieking Shack. They'd dragged him off there, forcing him against the wall in a body-bind curse.

 _"_ _How do we get it out?!"_

 _"_ _We cut it out, of course! Baxg kept it to the grave. The only way to get rid of it is to kill its owner!"_

 _"_ _No! Think! They'll trace it back to us! It'll just give the ministry an excuse to persecute our race more than it already has!"_

 _"_ _Let them try and we'll see where all their galleons go."_

 _"_ _Quiet! The both of you! If we aren't careful to make sure we aren't caught, Jagobin with have his men on us!"_

Jagobin is definitely an enemy, judging by the way the spoke of him. I hesitate. If I blurt out a name from my vision, won't they be suspicious of how easily I broke? Still, there's a finger pointed at Leo looking like it'd like nothing more than to mash his insides into a smoothie and spray them across the gravestones, leaving a shimmering metal ball of magic rolling in the spinal fluid of a dead wizard. The image makes my heart clench. He's the only one who ever notices me. Aside from Frieda, but he's different from her…because of the Living Pearl. That has to be it. I realize, though, that it doesn't matter. I'm attached to Leo now. The first new person I've cared about since I was put under this wretched curse. I don't want anything to happen to him.

The goblin before me unknowingly gives me an opportunity by swatting the wand from my hand and shoving me into Leo so the blood from his nose streams into my hair. A fingernail is at my forehead in seconds and I feint breathing hard and fast in a panic. "It was Jagobin!" I shout, praying to Helga Hufflpuff my dues have been paid. I turn my head away and crouch as the nail slowly comes away from my head from the surprised goblins.

"Jagobin! He knows!" one shouts.

Another looks skeptical. "Jagobin? How? How? How? He couldn't know! The information's concealed."

The original turns back to me, offering an interesting gaze. "Do you know why Jagobin wants that Pearl?" I shake my head, hair flying into my face from my ponytail. He takes some shaky steps forward. The goblin's natural walking process is awkward and tangled like a wind-up toy. "Jagobin wants the pearl for purely selfish reasons. Wants it to rebuild a society of treachery to serve him. We want it for a noble reason. To return it to our kind. Everything made from the goblins belongs to us. It was our handiwork. It's rightfully ours to keep. We're just trying to take back what wizards seized from us."

"But you rejected Baxg when he came to your kind with the invention! Just because now you found out it has power gives you no right to take it back. You can't take the Pearl like that from Leo; it belongs to him now." I object. "The Living Pearl has its own right to accept or reject its owner. It's his as long as it's inside him and your killing him will only make it resent you! You'll be nothing but a bunch of thieves!"

"HOLD YOU TONGUE! Anything goblin made is ours by law!"

" _Your_ law, not ours. I'll bet the reason Baxg never told anyone he gave the Living Pearl away was because he knew you'd try and take it back! He wanted it in someone's hands other than a goblin's after your kind banished him!"

"That's it! Shut her up!"

Just as the goblin draws his arm back to strike, a scream echoes through the graveyard. Leo and I look up from our crouched positions, but just as my head turns, Leo grabs my shoulders and yanks me into the cold hard ground. Something hits my side, causing me to cry out. Something or rather someone fell over me. Poking our heads up, we see a swarm of what look like giant spiders crawling our way, advancing like a pack of ravenous wolves. Leo and a girl both grab me and launch the trio of us behind a gravestone.

"Oh, hello, Leo," Rose smiles, panting all the while. Her silky, carrot-colored hair has been transformed into a mess of snarls around her head. "Ah, and I don't believe we've met."

"Carina, Rose. Rose, Carina," Leo introduces uselessly.

"What are you talking about?" Rose asks him.

He stares at her for a moment incredulously, then shakes it off, deciding the spiders perhaps are a better issue. I tuck my head over a gravestone to view a giant, eight-legged creature climb over the gravestones near the forest as if they were pebbles. The hairy creature's eyes look like giant droplets of mud, gurgling around in his head. I throw my wand back and scream, "Confringo!" Giant limbs and mixtures of blood, bile, and waste fly back and crack old gravestones in half like foam packing peanuts before painting them morbid shades of red and black. I vault the gravestone and climb forward quickly on my hands and feet.

I notice Patricia behind a gravestone. What in Merlin's name is she doing here? And Rose and…well, apparently Albus as well. He hops a crumbling granite rock as a wall of lethal baby arachnids flow towards him and shouts, "ARANEA FERIO MAXIMA!" The black mass explodes back, conforming around an invisible bubble of air that turns the spiders to mist and dust the instant it's touched. It lashes through the graveyard and flattens the impending hoard like a steel sheet flattening snow.

I cough a bit, imagining the gravestone behind me holds the impression of my body in blood and guts. I shiver as I pick pieces of intestine off my shoulder and hands. "You've got something there," Leo says, red coating his mouth, neck and chest from the goblin's blow. He turns my face towards him and pulls a gooey night crawler from the lining of my ear and face.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeew!" I shiver and stomp around, yanking out my ponytail and shaking my hair in a dance that perhaps somewhat resembled the cross between a rain dance, the Charleston, and an epileptic's standing seizure. In all, I cannot see this moment as one of my most attractive.

"Funny, I hadn't had you pegged as squeamish," he smirks, lifting the bloody little fellow before his eyes as it curls upwards.

I shiver in disgust as I turn to the vile image of Albus chasing Patricia gleefully with arachnid…leftovers.

"It looks as if our friends have been finished," Leo notes, staring at the now empty graveyard as the two fifth years scramble past. Patricia screamed that if Albus didn't get away this instant, she'd hex him.

"Your friends?" Rose asks. "Who?"

"No one," Leo says. "Just some chipmunks." She obviously hadn't seen the goblins, but we both know that if they were taken by the spiders, there is nothing left of them by now. The situation is a rather extreme coincidence I find suspiciously too happy to be an accident.


	13. The Pearl's Catch

Chapter 13-The Pearl's Catch

"Let's see, here. You murdered a hoard of a dying breed of magical spiders, desecrated a gravesite, and went into the Forbidden Forest under direct contradiction of my rule, breaking a decade-long treaty for what, exactly?" The assistant headmaster stepped forward in the grimy room, putting his nose directly into Rose's face.

She opened her mouth for a moment, but it took a spell for the words to leave. "Ah...you see the spider incident wasn't exactly our fault…It's a little hard to explain."

"Try starting from the beginning," he said through gritted teeth.

She nodded. "Albus?" The boy looked at her like he was going to tear her head off, a piece of coagulated blood dropping from his ear and sticking on the floor. "Right, I guess I'll tell it, then."

"That would be best."

"You see, we…ah…saw a…a…a snuffleupagus…Or at least I did! I thought I did."

"Snuffleupagus?" he asked, genuinely perplexed. "I'm afraid I'm unfamiliar."

"Ah, yes, the, uh…snuffleupagus. Care to help me out, here, friends?"

"It's a furry, orange, elephant-like creature," Albus said, "with large eyes. It's a famous myth."

The man stared at her deadpan face for a moment, but shook this off. "And Rose led you all on this chase for the snifflegus, is that right?"

"Snuffleupagus," Rose muttered under her breath.

"Because I'm sure we all know how much Rose Weasley loves to believe in myths and conspiracy theories. That's why we all see her reading _The Quibbler_ with such gusto."

Leo had the strangest feeling their headmaster somehow knew that Rose was kind of girl who would not be caught dead reading such a newspaper. Being the head of the Auror department at the Ministry, Rose's uncle, Harry Potter, had probably made friends with the man, so naturally he must've kept a close eye on Rose. Leo imagined this was not only for the man's hopes she would become as great a study as her mother, but also to snitch information to her father. Being a friend of Albus, Leo had been forced to hear endless complaining from the girl about the sexism of her family.

"Oh, but it wasn't her, you see." Leo turned to see Carina speaking in her usual, oddly lopsided voice. "I do enjoy the merits of the snuffleupagus. Such a fascinating creature. Runs at such a slow pace according to accounts I've read. I really thought we could corner it. Alas, such luck has never been afforded to one with legs so short as mine. With intentions so impure."

He stared at her for a moment, dripping with blood, a long piece of spider's flesh sitting fuzzy between her black eyes. He nodded as he looked at her, trying to snap back to his senses.

"Right," he said. "Um...yes…I see, so it really wasn't—"

"The suffleupagus, few people know, is a cruel, harsh creature despite its outer appearance. You know those eyes? Have you ever seen them in person? I have. Everyone else was so lucky not to have. Do you know why they look so harmless?"

"Ah…miss, it's really no big—"

"So they can trick innocent animals to the slaughter. Yes. It's quite entrancing to see one. Like a little song being played over and over and over and over and over…" She closed her eyes softly and began to hum a scratchy, simple tune.

The headmaster didn't look quite so angry as eager to get the insane girl out of his office. "Ah, yes, yes! You know, I think I have head of this snuffleupagus! Haha! Some rumors floated around in my own day! Well, you all can leave now, I think. Yes, run along! No harm done really!"

She grabbed his arm, staring straight into his eyes. There must've been something there because he froze, wide-eyed. "But I'm not finished warning you. You have no idea what it is capable of. The nightmares that will haunt you. But don't ask them away. No. The good dreams are the worst."

"Ah…"

"The good dreams lure you out to it and consume you in an ocean of happiness before it slashes your throat and leaves you to bleed out on the stone floor of a cave, your skeleton rotting with its other victims."

"Well, it's been lovely chatting, really! You may go now. Get cleaned up! Haha!" He practically pushed them back through his door.

Carina gripped the threshold and turned around so her head scarcely looked attached her own body as dried spider peeled from her cheek. "Are you sure you don't need to know more? You will find this in no book. It has destroyed them all. Or rather the humans who worship it."

"I think I'll manage," he told her truthfully. The doors slammed anxiously behind them. She smiled lightly to herself before walking down the stairs. He jumped down to meet her at the bottom of the steps.

"Alright," he admitted. "I am officially terrified."

"Oh, grand. You should be."

"What on Earth is a snuffleupagus?" Patricia asked.

"I don't know. I saw it once on television," Rose sighed. "I will never watch that again. It is honestly the strangest thing I've ever seen. I don't understand why muggles so enjoy it so."

"Mates, don't tell me that wasn't freaky," Leo said to the others.

"What wasn't freaky?" Rose asked.

"Are you quite serious?! What just happened!"

"Leo, Albus is the son of Harry Potter and I'm his niece. Of course he let us go. Let's just get to the bathroom to scrape these guts off us," Rose said. She grabbed Patricia's hand and dragged her down the hallway, Albus pausing to look back, giving Carina an odd look, and shooting down the hallway after them.

As soon as they were out of sight, he grabbed Carina's arms and pushed her into an empty classroom, slamming the door behind him. "Tell me what's going on. Now."

She looked up at him, eyes solid and dark as the dungeons beneath their feet. "You're going to have to be more specific."

"You know what I'm talking about!"

She looked straight at him without so much as blinking an eye. "I don't."

"What just happened out there? We were just attacked by goblins that were coincidentally taken out by a hoard of spiders!"

"Oh, there was nothing coincidental about that, I assure you." She looked down. "But I'm sorry I couldn't tell you before. You see, I had to be sure I wasn't wrong. To be completely honest, I can't believe they found us so quickly. They must have a way to detect the Living Pearl. A potion or spell…"

"What is the Living Pearl? And why is it inside me?!"

"I told you. The Living Pearl is a magical artifact made by a goblin named Baxg. At first, it was unwanted by goblin kind, but when they discovered how powerful it was, they all wanted it. As goblins are prone to. The Pearl has the power to enhance a body's natural abilities and is wanted by virtually every goblin alive; however, it hasn't been seen since Baxg's death."

He lifted his shirt and touched his bellybutton where he could feel something solid within him. He couldn't believe he hadn't noticed it before. "Until now," he finished.

"Until now," she nodded. "The only question is how you got it."

"Wait a minute," he said, looking up at her. "You don't know?"

She shook her head. "My story is…complicated."

"Well, start talking."

She turned to look back out the window as rain began to patter against the glass. But he instantly realized it wasn't the rain she was staring at. "No, I'm going to bed," she decided and began to walk past him.

He snatched her arm and pulled her towards him so their faces were inches apart. His chest moved up and down like a pump, but it was like she didn't breathe. Though he was holding her wrist, he couldn't feel a heartbeat. Yet she was anything but dead. Something was just slowing inside of her. He could feel it. Her skin was cool to the touch like a glass that'd just been filled with ice water in his hands. He'd never felt that before. It made goosebumps grow along his arm.

She turned her head up so her hair of black storm clouds revealed a sheet of a face with eyes dark holes spliced with bits of lightning. "You don't want to see me when the sun goes down," she promised him.

He let go and she walked out of the classroom, leaving him to listen to the rain bang against the windows.

* * *

Leo sat in Charms class, thinking about that girl. She kept flashing from his view like a fish he was trying to catch, slipping through his fingers until it flopped back into the water. He knew if he just grabbed and squeezed, it would stay there. It wouldn't be able to escape. She was like that, he was sure. She was a magician, but in the end, all her tricks were illusions. She'd made a mistake. She'd taken a risk that Saturday and he needed to know why.

"Remember," Flitwick instructed. "There are certain types of spells that can be changed with different wording once the spells become more complex. Magic is a diverse language. If a single syllable of spell is out of place, you could turn your friend into a frog instead of making her laugh. If the spell is in a language you don't understand, don't take the textbook's word for it and guess. Pronunciation is everything."

"Professor," Rose asked, raising her hand. The class groaned. _Give it a rest_ , Leo thought. Ever since she'd discovered she was terrible at charms, she was an informational machine. She had all the concepts down. In fact, she had the highest test scores of anyone in the school. She just always failed the practical. "Is it true many wizards can develop their own spells in English?"

The professor hesitated gadding at the front of the room for a moment. "The answer is more difficult than you may think," Flitwick finally responded. Just then, the bell tower clanged and the students rushed out of the class quicker than blood from a head injury. Leo was with them until he paused at the door. Rose sat alone in the classroom, watching Flitwick. The man walked to a shelf and took down a cuckoo clock surrounded by glass so the inner workings could be seen. "Magic, Miss. Weasley, is like trying to tell time." He set the clock down in front of her on her desk so they could stare at it ticking away the seconds. "We try to harness it to use to our own advantages. Like telling time, there are so many ways we can do it. There are pendulum clocks, incense clocks, quartz clocks, water clocks—"

"I know you like clocks," Rose interrupted him. "But what does that have to do with new spells?"

He sighed, looking down at his mechanical wind-up. "We can design many different clocks of the same type, but they all must have the same basic components. Most people, given the materials, can manage an egg timer, Miss. Weasley, but few can make a mechanical watch that will run off of gears and a pendulum. You're of the few that think on such complex terms." He placed his hands on the clock. "You can't think for something simple like an egg timer. You weren't designed for hexes and charms to come easy. It takes a different kind of work than you've been giving."

"But—."

"Good day, Miss. Weasley."

Rose got up and stiffly walked past Leo, out of the classroom.

"Wow," she whispered harshly. "That did not even remotely begin to answer my question."

Looking back to Flitwick, Leo had the feeling she was wrong.

* * *

Charms being his last class of the day, Leo walked slowly through the hallway, dragging his feet as his mind became absorbed in what had happened. He needed to find Carina. He needed to ask her everything she knew. But she seemed intent on remaining evasive. She must've known his schedule because he hadn't seen her once since that Sunday night in the abandoned classroom. She'd looked so small and pale. They were in the same year, but she looked no older than a third year, a tiny little thing with a baby face. Thinking back, he might've been able to run a hand straight through her face so his fingers passed to the other side. She blended in so well with the window behind her, like she was made of night. He had this sick feeling in his stomach, like he didn't want to know why she was the way she was.

Throughout the week, he'd tried to catch her. He took Jeremy's place in History of Magic, but the seat beside him was empty. When he looked across the room in Potions, her spot near the other Hufflepuffs was vacant. She didn't want him to know something and if he couldn't find out what, at least he could discover why.

He walked into the library. It was chock full of people. It appeared the girls enjoyed doing their homework nearest to the Quidditch athletes. They were filling out parchment on the floor as they giggled beside a group of filled-in teenage boys. It made him sick to look at. Something was funny in their heads. Like little bugs got in through their nose and ears and bacteria coated their eyes so everything was a competition. Who could get a boy to like them? Prize for whoever acts the most like a klutz.

Leo shook his head and breathed, trying to focus on his task and bring his encounter with the goblins to the front of his mind.

 _"_ _It was Jagobin!" "Jagobin! He knows!" "Jagobin? How? How? How? He couldn't know!"_

He was someone, probably a goblin, who wanted the Living Pearl. Leo remembered that much, but Carina had told him it was made by a goblin named Baxg. The only thing was Baxg wasn't a goblin's name. It clearly belonged to a dwarf. It was the difference between a Norwegian name and an Indian one. It was weird. So he started there.

He ran his fingers along the spines of the Ds of the magical creature section. There weren't many books on dwarves. Only a few thin copies with spines that hadn't even been cracked. He took them down from the shelf and laid them out on the table. None of them sounded too promising. _Dwarfish Philosophy_ , _The Biology of Dwarves_ , and, but of course, _Dwarfish Mining Effects on the Economic Downturn of the Nineteenth Century_. The next few hours might've taken a while if George hadn't announced her presence.

"Reading up on dwarves, I see," she said. "For your newspaper?"

 _Yeah, because everyone enjoys reading articles about tiny people with beards down to their feet who haven't changed their ways in hundreds of years. Loads of news there_ , Leo thought bitterly. "No," he sighed. "Sadly, something else entirely."

"Say, I've read that one."

Leo looked up. "You have? Which?"

"There, _A Code of Pickaxes_. Far more interesting than the title suggests." _No, don't sit—_ She took a seat opposite him at the table and leaned over the wooden structure, opening the volume. "It's a biography about a young dwarf named Dallen Ruby who was the first in three generations to leave his clan. It's very shameful for a dwarf to do that, you know. Family and code are extremely important to them, but he got into some trouble and he and some of the other dwarves were banished. Anyway, he off and befriended a goblin inventor. Some Bale or Bag or the like."

"Baxg?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. You heard of him?"

"Somewhat. What about him?"

"You don't want to read it for yourself?"

"Let's leave the reading to Ravenclaws and Rose."

George smiled. For a Fourth year, she was really quite pretty with a shaggy pixie cut to match eyes the color of mahogany.

"Baxg and Dallen chanced to meet and became quick friends. It's no wonder why. Baxg was a designer of complex magical items and Dallen was good with his hands and resourceful with finding materials. If Baxg dreamt something up, you could be sure Dallen could assemble it. Still, goblins and dwarves never did get along well, so the pair was odd. They spent over a decade together and became quite well-known in certain parts of the globe."

"What happened?" Leo asked.

"The two had a spat over a new item Baxg had created."

It didn't take him half a second to ponder what it might've been. "The Living Pearl?"

She gave him a look. "Ah, yeah, that's right. You know it has the power to enhance a body's abilities. Dallen thought it was too powerful for just one person and its effects should be limited. In the hands of an everyday wizard, it wouldn't do much, but can you imagine if a powerful and insane wizard like You-Know-Who were to get ahold of it? The Ministry of Magic would never be able to stop him."

"That could be a problem," Leo admitted.

"Baxg wanted to keep it for himself in all its power. He had absorbed it already and there was something Dallen didn't realize until only years later."

Leo knitted his eyebrows. "What?"

"The Pearl doesn't only enhance your good qualities, Leo. It makes your bad ones more salient than they ever were. Baxg was always pig-headed and proud. When Dallen suggested the Pearl should be lessened in power or even destroyed, he may not have backlashed if it wasn't for the Living Pearl inside of him. He chose to master his genius through the Pearl and that very thing became his downfall."

Leo touched his hand to his naval and for a moment, thought he could feel the power of the Pearl flowing in his blood. "His downfall?"

"Baxg, becoming ever more engrossed in the Pearl's effects after over a year of having it, bragged to whoever would listen about his genius and the Living Pearl. Most of the world at that time was convinced that Baxg was just a mad inventor living in the mountains. Scarcely anyone even knew of Dallen. As it goes, those looking for more power always keep an ear to the ground for how to get it and there was one goblin who believed immensely in the Living Pearl. When Dallen and Baxg finally parted ways, Jagobin captured—"

"Jagobin?"

"What is it?"

"Nothing, go on."

She gave him a look. "There's a lot in here. Are you sure you don't want to—"

"I told you once I don't want to read it; that should be enough for you! Why are you always so annoying?!" he snapped. He wanted to slap her for being so pushy. Like they all were. So pushy, pushy, pushy. Mine, mine, mine. All about me. Look at me. Do what I say. What if he didn't want to do what she said?!

She sat up in the chair and looked at him. "I wasn't trying to pester you, Leo. I just—"

"You just—What?! Merlin, I'm tired of this! Don't you think I can make my own bloody decisions?!"

She stared at him, her head shaking for a brief moment, like she didn't understand something. She looked like she was about to say something, but shouldered her bag and shoved her way through the people, out of the library. Leo stared after her for a moment, cursing how irritating the girls at this school always were, but he stopped. He grabbed the Pearl inside him and breathed. _The Pearl doesn't only enhance your good qualities, Leo. It makes your bad ones more salient than they ever were._ Was that him just now or the Pearl? He'd always been irked by girls' habits, but he felt like he'd just jumped from zero to sixty kilos on a broom and he wasn't feeling the whiplash until now. One minute, he was talking normally and the next he wanted to tear her head off and kick her in a pile of limbs on the ground.

He felt his limbs go numb like he'd taken too much of a pain potion and was dropping off. He squeezed his eyes shut and grabbed the book before him, bracing himself for the images unfolding in his mind. Living his life in hatred while his other friends were married. Worse, beating his wife if he'd managed to get one and feeling no remorse afterwards. Abusing his daughter and not caring. He opened his eyes and looked down at the book in front of him. George had flipped it open to a page with a picture of a short, stalky little man with a hat pressing down over his wild hair, standing beside a grinning goblin with a twisted nose. Scrawled across the bottom in black ink, _My Best Friend_.

Leo walked up to Madam Pince and slammed the book on the table. "I'd like to check this out," he said. "If you please."


	14. Pinch Me, I'm Dreaming

Chapter 14-Pinch Me, I'm Dreaming

I open my eyes Friday morning and instantly sense something is wrong. The room is still dark, but I pick up on the slightest bit of light. Something natural reflecting against the particles of the air outside the school. I shoot out of bed and run across the dorm, through the common room, and out, into the school halls in an instant. I run along the stone floors, barely breathing as I streak past countless frames. The floor is ice against my bare feet and my hair flies back, but all I can think of is that sun rising without me. Never in my life, not since I stepped into that pool in the dungeons my third year, have I woken to the sun already up. I naturally wake before dawn. Something is terribly wrong. After reaching my window, I climb out and pull myself onto the shingling above. I grip the roof for a moment, afraid I've missed it. Afraid my chance is up. But I can't live in fear there forever. I look up.

And our eyes meet.

The sun is there, rising, but I don't know if I'm in the vision. If I am, there's no way to know until I wake. If I'm not…What if I'm not? What if I missed the sunrise and the day goes on without me? What should happen? I feel cold inside. I must wake up. I have to try. If there's anything to wake up from. I can't do it here. I know that.

I look down below and suddenly the height seems dizzying, but I jump anyway. I soar through the air and land firmly on the ground so it quakes when I press my hand to the grass. I get to my feet. This is a good distance from where I was. If I pinch myself here, I'll wake back up there. I pinch myself.

Nothing happens.

I look back up, hoping to see some out-of-body vision of myself waking on the roof above. But my spot is empty. I panic and pinch myself again. Nothing. Again. Again. Again, again, again, again…NO! No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This feels wrong. I press a hand to my chest and breathe. My heart is jumping quickly, but not as quickly as when I leave my visions.

There's no vision. It's just me outside, in the cold, with my slip on. No wand, no clothes. Thank heavens it's just sunrise and barely a sole is on the grounds yet.

Just then, a group of six boys and a girl dressed in their Quidditch robes walk by me, whistling and calling for me to come over. No vision. This is all really happening. And it strikes me that if it were the vision, I wouldn't be able to process me being inside of a vision. It's not something I'm ever able to comprehend within. Now I can. This is wrong.

I run my fingers through my hair and walk slowly until I get into the school, but something snaps. I don't know what happened. It was an idea. A glimmer of hope. I break into a run. By the time I reach the Great Hall, there are a few people there. "Frieda!" I shout, scrambling through the Great Hall. She's always here early so she won't miss the hash browns which are gone in seconds. I skidder to a stop in front of her, eggs still hanging off her fork as she brings them to her mouth.

"Hello, Pocahontas," she greets. "Why don't you have clothes—"

"No time to explain! I need you to pinch me now!"

She raised her eyebrows and set down her fork. "Honey, we need to talk."

I have no time for one of Frieda's condescending lectures today. I jut out my arm. "Pinch me, Frieda!"

She pauses for a moment, then looks to the rest of the people in the Great Hall who are staring at us with great fascination. They don't exist in my mind. She leans close to me. "Are you crazy? What is your problem?!"

"Pinch my arm! Do it!"

She takes my arm and digs her fingernails hard into my flesh. "That what you wanted?"

I take my arm back and stare at the red welt. "Maybe you didn't do it right?"

"Are you serious?!" she shouted. "What is wrong with you?! You show up to breakfast in your knickers and want me to pinch you?! People are looking at us, you thick weirdo!"

"Sorry to have inconvenienced you," I tell her. I don't look at her. I stare at the spot on my arm where her fingernails pricked my skin, walking slowly from the Great Hall. I leave to Frieda's shouts, but I know if I let her stew a few minutes, I'll be a distant memory in her mind, a recall of embarrassment too far in the past to still upset her.

I make my way to the dungeons again. I think maybe I'll wander a bit. Fruitlessly look for that pond again. But I wonder. Can people remember me now? If I don't have my dream, can they see and remember who I am? I wonder. If I was ever strong enough to stop going up to that roof and staring into the drug sun, would I have been noticed because I had no vision? I stop in place and shiver in my slip as the cold sets in around me, my hair a mess, my legs and arms and most of my chest bare. I am nothing without my visions. Just a friendless girl who got terrible scores on her OWLs. I'll do the same for next year's NEWTs. Because I never had a reason to study. Because as well as I know people and this school, I'll never know the world well enough to fit into it.

Then, I hear a noise. Shuffling, shouting. Someone's frantically casting spells. Several someones. I duck behind a pillar as I see a boy pushed about. I peek out to see Albus Potter slammed against a wall, five wands pointed at his neck. Blood trickles across his mouth, down from his nose, hair ruffled, as always, in a black mess. His chest rises and falls fast.

"Does little Potter want to give up?" a boy laughs. I hold my breath. Sean Connors. The boy Frieda barely knows. She tends to fancy older men. Of course, who wouldn't go for the Slytherin's best Quidditch player? His reputation as a rebel didn't exactly have girls running from him either.

"Shut up, Malfoy. Don't be a coward. Fight me yourself!"

And that's when I fall, stumbling over my own two feet. Curse my chicken legs. The floor shoots the cold through my arms and legs and goosebumps push up in my skin. I hear whistles.

"Check it out, Potter," Scorpius taunts. "Another admirer from your adorable fangroup."

"Leave her alone, Malfoy! She's just a little girl!"

Amusing response. After all, I am a year older than him. It's hard to tell my age, though. Most people think I'm a third year instead of sixth.

"What? You don't like her? But she's so…oh, well, I guess she is pretty ugly, isn't she?"

Albus feints attack, but Malfoy doesn't flinch with the rest of the boys. He walks over to me and my blank face. He's much bigger than I am, but I'm hardly afraid. Reality is getting harder and harder for me to feel, so I pretend like it isn't there. I stand up, in his face. "Why is there so much anger in your heart?" I ask him. Oh, Carina. Lovey would be your only friend even if people could remember you.

A smile chisels its way into Scorpius's face. "I'm not angry. In fact, I'm a pretty good guy. I'm going to give you exactly what you want." I'm confused for a split second and he has a malicious smile. He grabs me before I can flinch and throws me to his cronies. They have me by the arms, but I don't try to struggle like Albus. There are too many of them. "Well? Don't you have a crush on him? Kiss him!"

I wanted to scream, arms pressed so hard behind my back, it feels like they might pop out of their sockets. They crush me against Albus who pushes his face away, yells, curses, kicks. Then, a hand grips the back of my head, digging its fingernails deep into my scalp and neck, and pushes my head into Albus so our lips are forced together.

 **I open my eyes.**

The sun is bathing in a million brilliant colors and I sit there, my heart beating faster than it ever has so I think it might blur into a line of sound like on those heart monitors at the hospital. I go limp and slide over the roof, but when I land in the grass, I land against the ground like an armoire and just lay there, splintered.

"Hey!" I hear feet stamp the ground. Someone pushes me over and shakes my arm. "Hey, are you alright?"

I crack my eyes. "Jeremy?" I ask.

He looks surprised I know him. "Ah, yeah, it's me." I realize he's one of the boys who whistled at me in my vision. He slides his arms under my back and legs to carry me. "I'm taking you to the hospital wing."

"No, no!" I say, I'm still sore, but I'm limber and climb quickly out of his arms, sitting on the wet grass, feeling a kink forming in my neck. "I'm fine."

Jeremy hesitates. "You sure?"

"I'm sure," I tell him.

He waits a minute, but then takes off his Quidditch robes and slides them over my head. "I've got more," he says as I open my mouth. "And you look cold. You haven't got much on."

He stands up and runs back to his group which looks over at me, but keeps walking.

For a moment, I'm frozen on the ground, sitting another boy's Quidditch robes. "Thank you," say to him quietly. Then, I pick myself up, walk into the school, and I start pinching myself, just to make sure it's real. I pinch myself everywhere, in every possible place, and nothing happens. This time, I'm glad.

I'm walking down the empty hallway when I freeze.

"I never should 'a let you carry the map."

"Oh, no, you're not blamin' this on me! I clearly told you the map was goin' into the oak's third branch for _you_."

"I 'ave absolutely no memory of this conversation."

"Maybe because you never listen to me!"

"I do too listen to you! Every time you wouldn't stop talking about Meredith Silverchain—"

"Oh, come off it! That was decades ago!"

Dwarves. Dwarves. The majority of the world, muggle, wizard, goblin, or any magical creature alike, has never seen a dwarf even once. Those that have are ones who've traveled deep into the mountainsides and encounter dwarf miners who spin them around and magic them back to civilization so no one else may follow. Now, here, on Hogwarts ground, are two dwarves. I can't close my eyes for fear I'll wake again and they'll vanish.

"Meredith Silverchain, the poems you made me write for her!"

Suddenly, the other dwarf notices me. "Ah, Darius…"

"That song! Oh, do you remember that song? _For no other love I 'ope more to gain_ —"

"Darius—"

"— _than that of Meredith Silver_ —BLOODY HELL, IT'S A WITCH!"

"That was a smashing finish, I must say," I applaud with a smile.

"STAY BACK!" Darius shouts, raising his pickaxe. "This breaks steel and cuts diamonds; I'll 'ave you know!"

"Oh, for all that's good and humble, she's just a wee lass," the other tells him, hands on his hips. He bends low, his beard piling on the ground below, and holds out a hand. I reluctantly slide my hand into his and he kisses it before rising. "My good lass, my name is Sloane. Sloane Copperridge. And this here is my grumpy companion, Darius Minesworth."

"Grumpy companion! I'm no grump!"

"No, no, 'course not." Sloane winks at me. "And your name?"

"I'm Carina Honeycomb," I say, instinctively curtsying in Jeremy's Quidditch robes. It would seem Sloane's manners are contagious.

"Well," Darius says. "Unless your name's Albus Potter, we don't want nothing to do with you."

"Oh, now, Darius—"

"Albus Potter?" I ask. "But I do know Albus."

The two stare blankly at me for a moment. Slone looks back. "You see there? You see how it pays to be nice?"

"Oh, shut your flapper, Sloane."

He looks back to me. "Miss. Carina, if you would, lead us to him?"

"I would," I say, "but he's probably still asleep and I'm not allowed to take you to the Gryffindor common room. I'm not even supposed to know where it is. I'm a Hufflepuff."

"Can you at least take him to us?" Sloane asks.

"That might be difficult, but I'll see what I can do." I step to leave, but pause. "Er…not to pry, but how is it you know Albus?"

"We met in the Forbidden Forest."

"DON'T TELL 'ER!" Darius shouts. "SECRETS, MAN!"

"On the weekend of Halloween?" I ask.

"I can't say I've ever heard of that," Sloane tells me.

I lower myself to one knee before them. "You aren't here because of the goblin incident, are you?"

They stand in silence for a moment. "Sidebar," they say in unison. To my fascination, the two skitter down the hall a bit of a ways and begin frivolous conversational intercourse, looking up at me from time to time. They skitter on back.

"First, you answer our questions," Darius says.

"I'll see if I can," I tell them.

"Why've you got them red spots all over you?"

"I've been pinching myself."

They look at each other for a moment. Sloane shrugs. "Must be a witch thing."

"Alrighty, then," Darius says, adjusting his pants. "How much do you know about them goblins?"

"Not as much as I could," I say truthfully. "But if this is about the Living Pearl, I promise you, I can help."

"You know that name?"

"Along with some other people. What's happened? Why were you in the Forbidden Forest?"

"The real story is what made us leave," Sloane says. "Goblins. The spiders captured a whole bunch of 'em, dried 'em up and drank every ounce 'a their blood, then hung 'em up all proud around their layer. I never seen spiders catch a goblin before. Thing is…we knew one of them goblins."

"Two of 'em," Darius corrected. "I met another one. Theys was always after us about the Living Pearl. But if you want it—"

"I've got it," I tell them.

They freeze.

"You 'ave?" Darius asked.

"Hidden," I say, "And safe for now."

"Safe for now's not safe for always," Darius warned.

"I know," I tell them. "I want to destroy it."

"Then we're on the same team."

I can't stop myself from immediately believing them. I know they could just be trying to get me to tell them where it is so they can dig it out of Leo's body and have it for themselves, but something tells me no. Ever since I fell into that pool in the dungeons, I've got this way I can sense about people. It's simple and imprecise, but it tells me if someone's intentions are bad. I've never gotten that with Frieda or Leo and I don't get that with these dwarves.

"How do we know we can trust you?" Sloane asks.

"What do you need to trust me with?" I ask. "I'm no threat to you. I'm the one with the pearl. You're the threat."

They exchange a glance that lets me know everything I've just said is wrong. "You're right, lass," Sloane nods. "We trust you." And even though there's something he's keeping from me, I know he does.

"Then trust me when I say you don't want to go to Albus. Yes, he was in the forest the day the goblins were killed, but he wasn't involved. It was a minor coincidence." I can tell the dwarves don't believe me. "So perhaps it was a coincidence I had a small part in," I admit, "but Albus was a puppet along with Rose and Patricia. The only other person involved is Leo."

"We only know Albus," Sloane admitted. "Lucky, though, that we'd just so happen to meet one 'a the two people in the school who know 'bout the Pearl."

"Not so lucky," Darius says. "You know the Pearl, Sloane. If this girl 'as it, it's already started."

I knit my eyebrows. "What's started?"

"She don't even know," Darius says shaking his head. "Just as ignorant as all the rest. Damn shame."

"What's going on? If we want the Living Pearl destroyed, we need to be honest with one another."

"I absolutely agree," Sloane says. "And it's obvious you're hiding something."

"I'll tell you everything I know," I say. "Just don't—"

"WAIT!" Darius shouts. "People are comin'. I can hear it. Quick! Give us your clothes!"

"My clothes?" I look down at Lorcan's red Quidditch robes and know I only have a slip underneath it, but then I hear voices and know I only have seconds.

Sloane's gotten onto Darius's shoulders and is holding out his hands. In that moment, I realize it doesn't matter if I'm half-naked; no one will remember my face, but I don't want them to wear the robes. Then they'll smell like dwarf. And not like Jeremy.

The voices get louder. I have no choice. I slip them off of my head and over the two dwarves. Sloane's head is only up to my shoulder, yet he looks like a forty-year-old man. Oh, well. In my rush, I never grabbed my wand, so I wait patiently as the group rounds the corner. They come gradually down the hallway and I think perhaps they won't see us because of my charm. I am wrong.

The group slowly passes and watches us.

"Slytherins," I say, standing with bare legs, arms, and shoulders in my silk slip. "Quite unlike the snake in its solitary brooding state of patience, I find. Truly, they throw quite the social gathering."

Sloane nods in agreement.

"The Slytherins had a party?" one boy asks.

We say nothing, just look at one another for a moment.

"Didn't you know?" I ask, suddenly spotting the Slytherin insignia on his robes. "This is quite awkward for you," I say. Not awkward for the ones in their jimjams and oversized Quidditch robes. Not a bit.

The boy walks away, towards his group muttering, "In my own dorm…"

As soon as they are out of sight, Darius tosses Sloane off his shoulders and throws me Jeremy's balled-up Quidditch robes. "Now do you mind hiding us somewhere before the WHOLE BLOODY WIZARD WORLD FINDS OUT WE'RE 'ERE!"

I smile. "I think I know just the spot."


	15. Whatever Happened to Dallen

Chapter 15-Whatever Happened to Dallen

Saturday morning, Leo felt like a collection of files had been dumped over his head for him to alphabetize. He'd had a dream last night that he was staring into the night sky and the sun shone impossible bright back at him. It was impossible. The sun couldn't be out at night. Until he realized that it was the full moon, reflecting the sun's light as it did every night and he realized no one could ever escape the sun.

At nine in the morning, he was sitting alone in the common room, watching the fire he'd lit. A light array of snowflakes fluttered gently in the outside air. He'd gotten up early to watch Quidditch practice, but then saw it was snowing and decided to just silently watch the flames he'd set to eat at the logs. He turned his head and stared across the way, out the window, where a white owl perched on the pane.

"Beautiful, isn't she?"

He switched his head around and stared, wide-eyed, at a tan blot of color. Her hair swirled back against her head in sections as if black velvet flowers were growing from her scalp. She took in his face for a moment and smiled. It reminded him of the delicate grin on Sleeping Beauty in the picture book his mother used to read to him.

"Beautiful," he repeated.

"Lovey," she reminded him, leaning over the back of the couch.

"Right…yeah…"

"You don't seem well," she remarked.

"Yeah, well, I…hey, wait. I've got some serious questions for you!"

"Such as?"

"Well, first off—" He looked around them for anyone else who might've let her in, but the common room was devoid of life, everyone either sleeping in on such a frigid Sunday or in the Great Hall absorbing bacon and eggs. "—How did you get in here?"

She nodded, drawing herself up and beginning to walk towards the window on the other side of the room. "It's not so hard to find the common rooms, or each one's special way of getting in, if a student doesn't know he's being followed. I know how to get into all of the houses. Of course, for this one I need the password, but it's not so hard to find. You know, it's mostly to protect the students from outsiders, not other students, though it works both ways. Ravenclaw is actually the hardest to enter."

She stuck her fingers beneath the latch of a window and yanked it up, over her head, so the wind shot through the rectangular space and blew at her hair. Black locks curled loose at her ears as Lovey hopped through the window, onto the near table.

"So, let me get this straight," Leo said as she slammed the window shut once more. "You spend your time playing stalker and then when you need to, just come in? Why? What's wrong with the Hufflepuff common room?"

She smiled down at her hands and removed them from the window glass, leaving frosty prints behind. "I would think that would be obvious," she told him. She turned back to look at him. "You're not in it."

"I'm not in…The Living Pearl."

"The Living Pearl," she agreed. She walked forward and sat comfortably on the arm of the couch. "I know I've been avoiding you for some time, but I realize now it has to stop." She looked at him. "I want us to work together, but if we are, we'll have to tell each other everything we know. This is bigger than just us and a few goblins. Like it or not, if we're going to get out of this alive, we need each other." She held out a hand. "Partners?"

He stared at it for a moment. He took it. "Doesn't look like I have much of a choice."

She smiled. "You're a fast learner."

* * *

Carina led him deep into the dungeons, past places and down corridors Leo had never seen in his life. Eventually, they passed into a dark passage where the once enchanted windows were fogged with cobwebs and dead flies. The area grew dimmer and dimmer until she was twisting through the solid darkness. At first, he thought an animal was following them or some clock was ticking against the wall, but he realized it was Carina. She was clicking her tongue in a constant rhythm that echoed off the walls. She had been ever since they'd been submerged in black.

"Carina, what is that you're doing?"

"Listening. See, I've never been very good at making friends aside from the animals that wander on the grounds," she told him. "I remember I used to take spiders from their nests and play with them in my hands during class and the children didn't like that much. I would come down here and wander far out into the dungeons. I never realized how deep they truly went. They weave into a system of underground caves that goes on for miles, I bet. I only know a bit of it. This part's like home to me. I've been through here hundreds of times. I remember I used to go through with my wand lit, but I found this big nest of bats and it irritated them so I had to put it out. I like to copy animals, so I tried to get exactly what they were saying, but it's like being in a mob of people and trying to single out one person's voice you've never heard before. I couldn't. But I tried all the way back through the dungeons. That's when I found out. I could hear the echo of my own voice. I could tell where it was coming from. I can do a pretty good bat, but it's easier to click and hear the echo of that one constant sound. I can see where I'm going better."

"You have to be kidding. You can see with sound?"

"Not very well," she added. "But you don't want to keep a light on in here while you're walking. You might annoy someone. Making a lot of noise also warns unwanted rodents you're coming, so they go away. A lot of them know me, though, and don't bother. They know I won't touch them."

"They know you?"

"I spend a lot of time down here. There's not much to do when no one remembers who you are."

"I want to ask you about that."

"We're here."

He stopped in place.

"I don't see anything."

She let go of his hand and he panicked momentarily. The second her skin left, the dungeon was colder than a crypt and seemed like a dark and impossible labyrinth which had swallowed him just to drive him mad trying to claw his way out. But he calmed immediately when he heard her knocking. Then, there were noises. Suddenly, she yanked open a heavy metal door so light poured into the passage. He stood stalk still for a moment before Carina, small and young-looking as she was, grabbed his shirt sleeve and threw him into the room before slamming the door closed behind them, pulling down a wooden board to lock them in.

Leo looked up from the ground. His eyes followed a patch of grey hair until he quickly reached the chin of man. His face was stubby and pink like the very center of a strawberry, but dirty and round.

"Who the ruddy hell is this?"

"Leo," Carina said, pulling the hood back on her cloak. "I told you he was coming."

"Dwarves?" Leo asked in amazement. "You're actually dwarves?"

Another of the tiny men stepped forward. "Sloane Copperridge, at your service. And this is my companion—"

"I CAN INTRODUCE MESELF! Honestly. Dwarf thinks I'm an imbecile."

"—the ever-so-kind and gentle Darius Minesworth." Sloane shook the hand Leo hadn't realized was lying out in front of him. "Pleasure to make your acquaintance."

"Same," Leo said robotically, getting to his feet. His eyes scanned the small room and instantly took in that Carina's real bedroom wasn't in the Hufflepuff dorms. Around the room were shelves that had been half-heartedly hammered into the stone walls, filled with vials of strange plants and limbs of animals. The walls were crowded with drawings of strange creatures she must've spent hours trying to get close to in order to sketch. Most of them were sloppy, but as he searched, he spotted more and more sketches that looked more like photographs than something etched out with ink. The point on her quill must've been finer than a fountain pen.

Instantly, from looking at all this, Leo was able to see what life must've been like for Carina. But something made him know better than to feel sorry for her. He could imagine that at one time she was unhappy this way. Maybe it was the way she held herself or gazed out at the sun during class, but something told Leo that this was no longer the case. Carina liked her life the way it was. She'd been cold to him because she didn't want him ruining her silence.

"Well, let's just mosey around and stare at the décor all day, shall we?" Darius said sarcastically. "Not like any of us are being HUNTED OR ANYTHING!"

"Hunted?" Leo asked.

"Start from the beginning," Carina told them, sitting on the ground. "The very beginning."

"It was that damn Dallen Ruby!" Darius shouted. "Always gettin' himself into trouble. Runnin' around with girls that waren't 'is, drinkin' when 'e should 'a been minin,' eatin' durin' chores. Boy was outa control. 'e was the hooligan 'a the city."

"Still," Sloane added, "You must admit. 'e was good with 'is hands."

"Aye, there that I'll say," Darius nodded. "Good with 'is hands and better 'n any dwarf in the city. Strange for one so young. 'nother strange thing. If there was an expedition past the city's confines, 'is name was the first on the list. 'e was itchin' to get outa there which is odd fur a dwarf. Always wanted to leave. Like 'e'd find somethin' better outside 'is family."

"Did you know him personally?" Leo asked, sitting on the ground beside Carina. The stone was even colder than the air, but no one else seemed bothered, so he didn't complain.

"Somethin' you should understand," Darius told him. "Even in the biggest dwarf city, everyone knows each other personally. We're all a big family. There're no creeps who live on the outskirts or dangerous parts 'a town like 'ere. If one man needs money, we help 'im 'till 'e's on 'is feet. If another's beat, we beat the offender. Understand? We work together. That's how a tight-knit place works."

"But Dallen was different," Leo surmised. "He was the outsider."

"Exactly," Darius said. "The lad was with 'is parents alone in the mines. Somehow theys was killed and 'e was so small 'e got lost. 'e returned years later a dwarf different from the others. 'e was alienated. Seen as somethin' of a dangerous one."

"So he left," Leo said, filling in the blanks. "I read a bunch of his biography. He left the clan and met up with Baxg Gearshatter."

"Is that all the fellow told people? Just up and vanished?" Darius said.

"Somehow I remember it differently," Sloane agreed. "It started with an expedition."

"My expedition, I might add," Darius grumbled. "It would 'a been the perfect score if Dallen hadn't signed to come. We hadn't enough dwarves. No one wants to leave the shelter 'a the city and mines. We 'ad plans to etch out a new cave where we thought minerals might be."

Sloane added, "I was the geological surveyor. I was the only one fluent enough in the art of alchemy to decently determine what types of minerals were hiding in various areas. That is, there were dozens of us. I was the only one young and daring enough to go on Darius's mission. It was a far way out."

"Dallen and I were the muscle," Darius said. "Lots 'a dangerous creatures in the mountains. You bump into a dementor or bogart and 'aven't the right equipment or know-how and you're dead as a spider under an axe.

"We went into an area Sloane 'ad plotted, and was searchin' it out. Sloane did a bunch 'a funny whooey and said it'd be ready come mornin' and to take camp. When we woke the next day, Dallen was gone."

"Along with all our supplies," Sloane added.

"The slimy snarsgoff 'ad left us fur dead. We'd never make it back the three days' journey without those provisions. It was just as we were wakin' that we 'eard a bunch of other dwarves."

"Wouldn't you know, the very same who'd vowed never to step foot in those regions even if we did find a hoard," Sloane commented.

"The minute we sees 'em, they up and arrest us. Not enough provisions to make all 'a us back to the city, so they hold a hearin' right there. They tell us we robbed the city treasury with Dallen and used this as an excuse to get a head start 'fore anyone noticed. Judge was right smug when 'e was tellin' us how dumb we was to 'ave taken the same route as we'd said we was goin' to and to sleep so long in the caves. Gee, we must 'a been the worst criminals 'e ever seen. Slimy snarsgoff never seen no criminals past a child stealin' a licorice whip, I bet you, I'll bet you a lot."

"Immediately, we knew it was Dallen," Sloane told them. "And everyone else knew it too. They just made the mistake of thinking we were involved as well."

"What was in the treasury that was so small Dallen could get it past you?" Leo asked. "The book I read strongly suggested dwarves don't place much value in what they mine just because they find it everywhere."

"The lad took 'is share 'a gems," Darius acknowledged, "but the real prize was the Pearl."

Carina shook her head. "You don't mean the Living Pearl?"

"That I do, lass. The Livin' Pearl was special far before the goblin, Baxg, enchanted it. He sought an object that could improve a being's natural condition. Dallen brought 'im that object. The Pearl was an empty shell 'a magic. Anythin' could be placed in it. The city was savin' it in case of emergency, a pox outbreak or food shortage or the like. If used right, the Pearl can be filled with a singular purpose until it's emptied. Even not bein' a dwarf, Baxg had the genius to fill it."

"So Dallen and Baxg knew each other before Dallen left the city?" Leo asked. "That would explain why he always wanted to go on those expeditions."

"Of course 'e did. We all knew about 'im," Darius said.

Carina shook her head. "You knew about Baxg?"

"Dallen talked of Baxg often after his parents died," Sloane explained. "Claimed he was a dwarf that saved his life. Of course, now we know, it was just a story he invented to explain how he got out alive."

"That's why he has a dwarf name," Leo realized. "Baxg Gearshatter wasn't his name at all. But then who was he really?"

"Does it matter?" Sloane asked. "He's dead now. They exhumed him some years ago. We were there to see it and the sight wasn't pretty."

"The rest is 'what you'd expect," Darius continued. "Sloane and I kept sayin' the lad was strange for wantin' to control all the supplies, but we was happy to not be carryin' 'em ourselves so we didn't say nothin' and just assumed it was another one of 'is quirks. The dwarves that came to arrest us found that story mighty fishy, the lousy—"

"—But we don't blame them," Sloane interrupted. "Those dwarves weren't close with us and the story would've sounded wrong to anyone. We would've begged to go to the city for another trial, but it was no use. It had been three days. By then, we knew the rumors would have spread through the city and tarnished our names. People would always suspect we did it no matter how much proof we had of our innocence. We were held for a time as they tried to catch Dallen, but it was a fool's errand. Lad must've been planning that run for a long while."

"And then 'e left and met up with Baxg," Leo said, filling in the blanks. "According to the book I checked out at the library, Dallen lamented helping Baxg make the Living Pearl into what it was and tried to stop him, but was pushed away by Baxg who'd absorbed it. Eventually, a gangster named Jagobin got wind of the invention and went after them, so Dallen ran."

" _That_ sounds like Dallen," Darius griped. "The slimy snarsgoff, the runner. 'e was a coward if I ever saw one and doesn't deserve to be called a dwarf!"

"Let him finish," Sloane said patiently.

Leo continued, "Dallen escaped to a different set of mountains and hasn't been seen since. The only reason his story's in the book is because he met up with the writer and told him the entire story just before he went into the mountains to get some money for supplies. He was flat broke after he left Baxg."

"I'm not surprised he lied about how he left his clan," Carina said in her soft-spoken voice. "He knew he would never return back to that world, but he at least wanted to be remembered as a good man." She stopped talking, but Leo had the feeling she had more to say. The statement sounded incomplete, like she was holding something back.

"In the outside world, at least, he would," Sloane said. "The dwarves have next to no contact with the outside world. They've no idea what's become of the Pearl and are too tied to the mountain to ever leave and find out."

"The book doesn't mention the Pearl after that," Leo said. "It says Baxg turned himself in to the magical authorities to prevent himself from being captured by Jagobin, but the Living Pearl just sinks into obscurity."

Carina looked thoughtful. "I wonder if your father knows. He sent me a page from a book on goblin inventions that said—"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," he stopped her. "You're on speaking terms with my father?"

"Of course. We've never fought. Why, is he angry with me?"

"I don't—No. It's just…when did this start?"

She tilted her head. "When you remembered who I was, Leo," she said.

He didn't say anything. He just stared, confused. Did his father know something about this? But Carina didn't notice the perplexity of him and the dwarves so she kept talking.

"Let's see...The page said Baxg came to live here, in the United Kingdom and many people thought he'd died with the Pearl, but when his body was exhumed, it wasn't there, meaning he had to have passed it on at some point in his life before he went to Azkaban to hide from Jagobin."

"It's possible Baxg found a way to hand the Pearl off to Dallen, ever his partner in crime. After all, dwarves can live for hundreds of years, he could keep it safe much longer than the short-lived Baxg," Sloane suggested. "Or it languished at the Ministry of Magic."

"But none of this explains how I got it," Leo said. "I'd never heard of the Pearl before Carina showed it to me let alone put it in my body."

"Aye, someone must've put it in you for safe keepin,'" Darius said. "No one would guess it was bein' protected without the host body knowin.'"

"And Hogwarts has protective barriers that would protect Leo if someone did find out. The only reasons the goblins were able to find you two that day in the graveyard was because he was outside of the wards," Sloane added. "Darius and I had a grand old time trying to take up residence here. We wanted somewhere people wouldn't come bothering us and where better than a forest forbidden to all wizards? Eventually, we negotiated a deal with the centaurs. Darius constructs things, I brew chemical elixirs."

"You're forest shrimp," Carina commented. The room paused for a moment.

"I think she means handymen," Leo changed.

"I love eating shrimp," Carina smiled. "Flavors that zap and twist against my tongue."

"I've never heard of them," Sloane said.

Darius looked as if he was deciding whether or not to be offended.

"Anyway…" Leo said, trying to swerve them back on topic. "How would someone get the Living Pearl inside them?"

"Press it into your naval until it sinks into your skin," Sloane said. "Or swallow it. Any number of ways to get it in, really. The trouble is getting it out. You can't just grab the Pearl to pull it back out. Someone must've done it while you were sleeping."

"Mr. Wespurt," Carina said. "I'll bet it was him."

"Who the hell is Mr. Wespurt?" Darius asked.

"You think it's my dad?!" Leo asked incredulously. "What is wrong with you!? It isn't him! He would have told me!"

Carina shrugged. "He may have thought you were better off not knowing, but needed to do what was safest for the Pearl."

"She's right, lad," Darius told him. "'e's in your house when you sleep, 'e knows you go to Hogwarts, and 'e knows about the Livin' Pearl. It's probably 'im."

"No it isn't!" Leo got to his feet. Carina and the dwarves stared up at him from the ground. "Don't you think if he did know, he would've told me?! Don't you think he would've wanted to protect his only son?! YOU THINK HE CARES MORE ABOUT SOME STUPID PEARL THAN HE DOES ABOUT ME!?"

Sloane stepped forward. "We didn't say that, lad. It's just—"

"NO, FORGET IT! MY MOTHER LOVES ME!"

He reached the door just as he heard an airy voice echo through the chamber.

"Don't you mean your father?"

Leo froze in place. He looked back at her. "Now it's your turn," he said. "Tell me everything you know."

* * *

"I see the sky and wake to a translucent reality."

They say nothing for a moment. Then, Leo opens his mouth and shuts it again. Sloane nods for a moment. We're like that until Darius blurts, "WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DOES THAT MEAN?!"

I cock my head. Right. "I suppose you could refer to me as clairvoyant," I try to clarify. "It's not possible for you to comprehend, I do not think. It's like…like a fish swimming against the current."

"Our comprehension or your psychic powers?" Sloane asks.

"Both," I say. "One day third year, I fell into a pool of water and the rest is a blur of photos etched into my mind." I shrug.

"Third year?" Leo asks. "But you were thirteen. Your friends must've noticed you disappeared."

I smile softly. "I never had any friends, Leo."

He looks at me. "Your parents?" I say nothing. Leo can't stop shifting his eyes as he looks at the ground. "No one ever remembers who you are," he says finally.

"Only wizards," I say, trying to lesson his pity for me. I need none of it. "Most other creatures, like the dwarves and animals and the goblins that saw us at the graveyard, aren't affected by the curse. I don't know why. Some wizards, though, like Frieda, can remember me and she even doesn't pay me mind for long. Leo, I think you might be like her, able to remember me, but just a bit. If we'd spoken before I fell under this curse, you would've vaguely kept an image of me if I was salient enough. The Living Pearl enhances a body's natural abilities. That must be one of yours."

Leo sits back down where he is, a distance from us in the room, still shifting his eyes as if he's trying to solve a puzzle of the floor stones. "That's how you knew about me in class and Lovey and my paper and…You really are a psychic."

"In a way," I say. "But something's happened." I don't want to share, but I think they may be able to help. Oh, please be able to help me. "I usually pinch myself to wake from a vision. Some sort of pain. But today, when I kissed Albus—"

"You _kissed_ Albus?!" Leo shouts incredulously. "When did this happen?!"

"No worries," I say nonchalantly, waving a hand. "Scorpius and some others did it, so—"

"They WHAT?!"

"They were there so it doesn't count. Well…it wouldn't count anyway…"

"What is going on in this school?" Leo whispers, rubbing his temples.

"When I kissed him, I woke up. The pain didn't work, but the kiss did. For some reason, my impetus changed."

"Just this morning, you say?" Sloane asked.

"Just before I met you."

The two dwarves exchange a serious glance between them. "It's started," Darius said.

"I'm surprised it didn't come until this late," Sloane sighed.

"What is it?" I ask. "Is it something bad?"

"Depends on your definition," Sloane tells us. "The Living Pearl is using its magic to manipulate Hogwarts, starting with Leo and whoever he's closest to. It'll spiral outward until everyone in the school is affected."

"But why?" I ask. "I don't understand. What could an object stand to gain from any of it?"

"There is the question of the hour. Baxg may have given it a task it's set to fulfill even in his death or it might have taken its own wants into consideration."

"Too bad we don't have a psychic," Leo says looking at me.

I shake my head. "Leo, you misunderstand. My visions come to me, but they are by no means set in stone. I change the things that happen every day, but _only_ day by day. I can only see under the sun's rays. When it falls from the sky, my vision goes as black as the oncoming night. I can't see so far into the future as to know what the Pearl is after. I've known instantly since I got this curse that it connected me to the sun. I only feel alive when I am beneath its rays and it controls what I do and how I live. I only live for each day and never for the future."

Sloane nods and says. "You're a sun slave. And that has everything to do with why the Living Pearl chose you."

I shake my head. "It chose Leo."

"It chose to let Leo see you," Sloane corrects. "It may have been placed in Leo, but me thinks you are its true master."

"It really is alive," Leo says, fingering his naval. "And I think they're right. The Pearl likes you, Carina. It doesn't belong to me. It just let me carry it to you. Just like with Baxg, the Pearl will start taking advantage of me and bringing out the worst in what I am until I let it go. You have a different kind of magic that might actually be able to combat the Pearl's."

"But we don't know how to get it out," I say. "And besides, I don't want to keep it. If so many bad people want it, it should be destroyed."

"One thing at a time, there missy," Darius responds. "We get the Livin' Pearl out first and then we see about killin' it."


	16. Bet, Bait, Broken

Chapter 16-Bet, Bait, Broken

 _"And so the moral of this story is to never follow a woman, no matter how much you fancy her, into danger. Rather, grab her and tie her to a bedpost. Then, tie yourself to a nearby bedpost (perhaps the same one) and maybe the two of you will strike up a conversation on your inability to talk things out like a mature adult. It requires slightly less effort and zero fear of being turned into wizard-flavored flesh raisons by an Acromantula."_

Patricia smiled as she read Albus's article in _The Hogwarts Chronicle_. They had detention, of course: hand scrubbing the gravestones in Hogsmeade until the entire place was spotless, but considering what could've happened, that was a minor punishment.

"Rose," she asked. "Do I look alright in this? I thought I'd put my hair in braids, but I look so dainty in those. I think I'll just leave it down."

"Smashing," her voice returned.

Pat turned around. "Are you even—" No. She quite obviously wasn't. In the last week since her ordered books had come in, Rose had transformed herself into the Nutty Professor, engrossing herself in magical laws and necessities needed for making a wand. Her red hair was now a ball of frizz floating about her head like a strange creature which had decided to take residency there.

"Rose," Patricia tried again, kneeling on the ground and resting her arms and chin on a stack of books. "What do you think I should do about Albus? I like him, but…he's still so immature. He's only fifteen. I don't want him to break things off for some stupid reason because he doesn't understand relationships and then destroy our friendship. We've still so much left to enjoy of Hogwarts."

"WHAT?! Listen to this." Rose jabbed her finger in her book violently. "'Pour all five potions into the brew at the _same time_.'" She slammed the volume shut. "How the bloody Hell am I supposed to do that?! The one book I find on wand making requires me to have five arms, apparently."

"You know you could just levitate them."

Rose smiled hollowly and shook her head. "Oh, Patricia. Beautiful, beautiful, naïve Patricia. Your suggestions are too much sometimes. You see, according to this, I can't use any form of charms while I'm making this. This would be a dream come true for I, terrible charmer that I am, except this book is telling me to bend over backwards and lick to my bellybutton as if it's telling me to make a sandwich."

"I could help."

Rose groaned. "Only I can do it. Have you ever seen a wand assembly line or a wand factory before? No? Because, interestingly enough, neither one exists. You need a single person to hand craft it or it throws off everything. Don't ask me why. Haven't gotten to the bit where they explain it, those mongrels." Rose opened the book and rested her head in the pages. "No wonder there are only a few wand makers," her muffled voice said. "This is costing serious time and money." She looked up. "Have you any idea how much Bladder Wrack Seaweed is on the open market? Just one unprocessed piece? Do you know how much a power crystal is? Do you know how many stores sell ceramic jars in the shape of the five most sacred letters from the Latin alphabet? I'll give you a hint. What's two minus two?"

"I still don't understand. You have the basic wand ingredients. Just send them to a wandmaker and they'll make it for you, including all the potions. It'll still be pricey, but surely cost less than what you'll be spending now."

"The point of this is to do it myself! Why does no one understand that?"

"But what if you spend all this time on a new wand and it's still not good enough."

Rose shrugged. "It can't be any worse than the wand I've got now."

"Agreed," Pat nodded. "Now." She stood up and twirled. "What do you think?"

"That depends," Rose told her, sweeping the girl over with her eyes. "Are you going for Father's Day brunch with your overly-chubby cousins?"

Pat frowned. "Ah…no."

"Are you attending the funeral for a golden retriever?

"I'm getting the feeling I should change."

"Those feelings," Rose sighed. "Always looking out for us, wouldn't you say?"

"I hate you."

"That's alright. I love me enough for the both of us."

Pat made her way to the bureau by the bed as Rose sang a horribly off-key version of "Cauldron of Love" in nothing but her knickers and a flowery blue bra. She slipped off her robes and scoured the drawers for something slightly more befitting. All of the clothes she liked, she'd grown out of. Patricia didn't see much harm in giving Heather a taste of her own medicine. She would've taken something of Rose's but the girl was lucky to be average height while Patricia was about as tall as each of her four brothers and sister. After searching for a bit, she came upon some clothes that were casual but not so universal in color. They felt a little less safe, but Rose whistled from across the room. "Patricia, you temptress!"

"I can pound you, you know," she told her. "Have you hospital wing for a week."

"Why not start with that line when you see Albus in the common room, eh?" Rose suggested. "It sounds so much better than 'hello.'"

"I'm leaving," she said, walking over strewn books and clothing to the door.

" _And I'm procraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaastinating_!" Rose sang, draping herself over a giant volume bound to be digging into her back.

Patricia shook her head, smiling as she shut the door behind her and made her way down the stairs to the Gryffindor common room. Albus sat cracking peanuts on the floor and tossing the shells into the fire. The rest of the room was empty, a rare jewel of a time when there was silence in the main room of the tower.

Patricia walked past him, towards the portrait hole and he whistled the same as Rose. "Oh, Patricia Cassiopeia McLaggen, did you get all dressed up just for me?"

"Dressed up?" she looked down at herself and smiled. "Stop trying to be flattering. I'm getting back at Heather for always taking my things. This dress and I are going for a night on the grounds."

"Can I come?"

"Girls night. No boys allowed."

"What do you do on those nights?"

"Oh, just what you'd expect. Worship the devil and play spin the bottle in our knickers."

She smiled as she walked through the portrait hole and pushed the painting shut behind her. She scurried down the passageways, letting her robes fly out behind her, until she reached the dungeons. She walked down the empty shadowed corridors, listening to the sound of her shoes echo against the stone floor. She rubbed her arms. It was cold down here. She didn't know how the Slytherins stood having their common room down here. Though she didn't know exactly where it was, this is where the Slytherins always came from in the morning and disappeared to in the afternoons. She didn't know these halls nearly as well as they did, but even they didn't venture too deep. Students had gotten lost wandering the place and stayed down there for days until some ghost found them and led them back the right way. They weren't so very expansive. It was more that the area was bewitched so prisoners couldn't escape and students occasionally were stuck in its trap.

Suddenly, she saw something. In the glow of her wand, a silhouette passed fluidly along the wall and disappeared from sight. "Hello?" she asked. She slowly stepped forward, afraid to see who it might be.

"Boo!"

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!" she screamed, swiveling instantly and slashing her wand at the air behind her. A body hit the stone ground, laughing.

"Why are you being like that?" he asked, getting to his feet. "It's not like the Forbidden Forest. Nothing's down here but rats."

"Scorpius," she sighed, relieved. "I saw someone."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Someone. He freaked me out. He just walked past. Why do we have to meet down here anyway? Can't we just, I don't know, meet by the Whomping Willow or something?"

Scorpius looked her over. "Ever since you went into the Forest, you've been on your toes about everything."

"Well, shouldn't I be? With what's happened? I was the only one who saw those goblins and Leo was in the graveyard with them. There must be something going on."

"Whatever it was might be over now," Scorpius admitted.

"But what if you're right about Frieda and Leo?"

He shook his head, white-blonde hair shifting in the cold chamber. Patricia had noticed over time that he always had such a serious expression on his face. Even when he was smiling.

"I don't know," he said. "Now, I doubt it. When I mentioned Frieda and tried to provoke Leo, he didn't take the bait. He didn't defend her at all or get angry or even try to shift the topic away from her."

Patricia rolled her eyes. "Have you met Leo, Scorpius? I know you get angry at the drop of a hat, but Leo's not so easy to sway."

"But Leo's loyal. He's a Gryffindor. He still would have defended her. It barely even seems like they're even friends. We may have done more harm than good by making him interested in her."

"Leo doesn't get interested in girls. Albus told me himself. He thinks they're all worthless, boring, and stupid. He's a misogynist, perhaps not to the highest degree, but a misogynist nonetheless."

"You're wrong, Patricia."

"Fine, it's not much like I care what you think. I just want to stop jumping from body to body before we find the right one."

"It isn't your job in the first place. If you don't like it, get out."

"Please. You need me, Scorpius. Admit it. I can befriend any student here if I wanted to. Ever since You-Know-Who was defeated, the Slytherins are virtual outcasts in this school. Everyone knows you're always picking on Albus because you're jealous that he's so much more popular that you."

"I am not! I would never be jealous of that stupid twit! He's an idiot, always pranking and teasing people! You're only defending him because you fancy him."

"Albus is smart! I've seen it when he went into the Forbidden Forest with Rose and me! Albus is a hundred times smarter than you'd ever think!"

"So still not very bright, then. Honestly, Patricia, if he's really so magnificent, then why does he always run away black-and-blue from our fights?"

"That's not fair. You bring other Slytherins with you. And they only hang about you because you're a Malfoy and their parents are prejudiced. If you ever had a fair fight with Albus, you wouldn't stand a chance!"

"Care to test that?"

"Any time. Any place!"

"Fine, then. Tell Albus if he really thinks he's so great, he can pick both and I'll be ready for it."

* * *

I walk across the lush green grass on the cool November day. I love the feel of the tiny stalks of green brushing between my feet as the wind whips my hair and robes back. I smile, remembering the day I found this in the trash. It was ratty, but I patched it and cut out the holes, so now it hooks around my neck and wraps tight around my curves. I love it. I love my life, in fact. When I'm away from school, I live like a nomad, wandering in the forest and sleeping beneath the stars. When I was little, I once thought people were mad for writing books about walking through malaria and tiger-infested jungles to "find themselves." I'm not sure what that means. I know who I am. I just like it when I can breathe the fresh air and push my head against the bark of a tree and climb high in its branches.

It's dangerous, of course. Once I met a man who'd been bitten by a tick and turned shaky and yellow like bile. I had to run to a house and steal a wagon. Then I fit him inside, pulled him there, and left him on the doorstep. After a few hours of sitting in a cornfield, waiting, a white box on wheels, red lights flashing and making all sorts of noise, came and took him away. It could've been anyone, I don't know. The letters were backwards on the nose of the muggle contraption. Strange ways these muggles have. Course I'm one to talk, aren't I? My best friend is a brown, spotted owl who doesn't even belong to me.

Speak of the devil. Lovey soars so high overhead, she is but a silhouette, but I know it's her. I've seen her once before today. And I know what's in that letter she's carrying.

She swoops down and lands firmly on my outstretched arm. She's a powerful bird and doesn't realize, perhaps, how painful that is. My arm there, where she always lands, is thickening with fat, muscles, and lines of callouses. I bring her closer to me and slowly lower us down to the ground where she hops off and hoots. I love that sound. I reach down and take the letter from her. "Why did you send this?" I ask. "I don't understand. It doesn't make sense." She tilts her head and I know she ill understands me. This man. Its Leo's father, isn't it? Doesn't he, no, shouldn't he want to tell me everything he can? What's happening that he can't? We're safe at Hogwarts, aren't we?

My eyes flicker to Rose, kneeling in the green with her robes spread out around her in elegant ripples. Her hair is plaited, but still flies out of place in bold red curls. I notice a group of younger boys across the way are glancing at her and joking with one another. If a single one tries to go near her, James, Albus, and Hugo might jump from a nearby tree and tackle him, so they stay at a distance.

I walk towards her and sit beside her. "What are you reading about?" Of course, I know.

Rose screams which I am not expecting. "How—" She looks around her frantically. The boys' attentions are drawn. "How did you—ah…" She tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. "Who are you?"

"Carina," I introduce. "Honeycomb. You're Rose Weasley, yes?"

"Ah…yes, that's me. Not to be rude, but what exactly do you want?"

I look to Lovey, perched on a tree at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. A white speck in a field of dark shrubs. "To turn into a bird and fly high above the world I know, past where the sun can control me." I smile at her. "But I assume you mean why I sat to talk to you." She gives me a look for a second that tells me exactly what kind of girl she is. She may keep away from boys and avidly study, but she's still just an average girl and I want as little to do with her as I can.

"What did you say your name was?"

"Carina," I say. "I'm Leo's friend."

She raises her eyebrows. " _You're_ one of Leo's friends?"

"He tells me you're onto some big project."

Rose grits her teeth and shoves the book close to her chest. "Did he now?"

"And he said you needed Bladder Wrack Seaweed."

She knits her eyebrows. "How did he know that?"

I shrug. "I'd be lying if I said I knew what your project was, so I've no clue."

"But why would he mention seaweed anyway?"

"Ah, well, I was telling him about the bottom of the lake. I swim, you see."

Her eyes widen. "You _swim_ the lake?! Do you have a death wish?! Ever since the Battle of Hogwarts, those mermaids will rip apart anyone who goes in there!"

"And a rattlesnake also may bite me if I step in the desert. That hardly means it will happen. Wouldn't you say? So, I've a deal. Tell me about what you're making and I'll get some for you. It's expensive at the store and too far to swim to on the beach."

Rose stares at me incredulously for a moment, shaking her head. "No."

I raise my eyebrows in artificial surprise. "No? Oh, please. It isn't quite like this is anything catastrophic, though it may be in your world. You seem like one of those dramatic teenagers who always makes a giant deal out of everything. You're lucky I'm so curious. I'm saving you a lot of money on something that'll probably fail anyway. So tell me, what's so very secretive?"

"I—I WON'T TELL YOU A THING!"

She stuffed her book into her bag and began walking towards the school, infuriated.

"You'll never get it yourself, little princess!" I call back. "Only _swimmers_ can stand that water. Don't bother getting your hair wet!"

She runs off, hair a swirling mess of flames fueled by the wind. Because how _dare_ I try to force myself into knowing her secrets. How dare I be so manipulative.

* * *

Leo was sitting at the Ravenclaw table during lunch where he was talking with some of the Quidditch players about how Lysander was back in the hospital wing to remove a set of webbed feet Scorpius had "accidentally" given him in charms. Lorcan had been sitting gloomily further down, silent. At the time, Leo assumed it was because Zabini had come to sit with his girlfriend, Natasha Patil, and the two were clinging to each other and naming various classifications of fruit of which they each apparently resembled, but suddenly he got up and walked out of the Great Hall as quickly as he could. Leo thought he heard him take a heavy breath.

Nathan, the Ravenclaw keeper watched him leave and shook his head. "I'd be upset too," he muttered.

"Not because of Lysander?" Leo asked. "Man's in the hospital wing every week for one thing or another."

Nathan shook his head. He paused, looked both ways and leaned close, over the table, towards Leo. Leo returned the gesture, the two at the end of the table so none of the others were paying much mind. "You didn't hear it from me, but I hear Luna Scamander is dying."

Leo looked back at the doors Lorcan had just escaped through, remembering how seriously Lorcan took the teacup readings.

"How long has it been going on?" Leo asked.

"As far as I know, since May," Nathan whispered. "She was hit with a pretty intense blast from a creature she was taming, or trying to tame. Her memory started to go. By August, it was safe to say she really was insane. I saw it for myself, mate. My mother sent me over to his house to send back some plate she borrowed. I went inside and no one was there but Mrs. Scamander. She was rocking back and forth in a chair, scrawling some nonsense over parchment like it was a novel. She must've gone through a hundred sheets. All the while, she was babbling on like a lunatic. She's always been odd, but not like that, you know? That was scary. I left the plate on the table and got out of there as fast as I could. I've heard about spells like that. It's some next-level dark arts magic."

"Is she at St. Mungo's?"

"Yeah. Now she is. My mum just went to see her a few days ago and she told me she was in way worse shape. She can't do anything by herself. She can't remember anything. She's deteriorating."

"You can't be serious. It hasn't even been a year?"

"Yeah. Can't be easy on Lorcan. He practically worships his mother. They do everything together at home. And, you know, Lorcan's a sensitive guy. He can't take much more of this."

"They're not going to euthanize her, are they?"

Nathan shook his head. "She's too young for that. What I hear they might do is send her off for research."

"Research?"

"You know, she's young and sturdy. Mr. Scamander might let them have her to use as a guinea pig, to try spells and potions on. I would never release my mother so young for something like that. They've barely done any research in that field and it's always the first ones who turn out the worst. Even if they do succeed, can you imagine? She might wake up fully aware, but with her body smashed up from dark magic."

Leo looked at his plate. He wasn't full, but he certainly wasn't hungry. Not anymore.


	17. Rose Strips a Slytherin

Chapter 17-Rose Strips a Slytherin

Rose stared down at the lake. "Oh, this is a bad idea, this is a bad idea, this is a terrible idea!" she shouted to no one in particular. It was just before the sun rose, so she was alone.

Rose had tied her hair back and taken every precaution necessary for surviving underwater. She repeated incantations in her head for fighting off creatures or potential plants she might encounter, but her wand was awful anyway. They wouldn't much help.

She breathed deeply and inched behind a large willow tree where she stripped down to her underwear and stuffed her clothes in the tree's knothole. She never bothered bringing her swimsuit to Hogwarts; the lake was off-limits.

She dipped her right foot's toes into the water…and it was warm. She'd never been in the lake, but she'd expected it to be freezing. She slid her feet easily into the silky water and lowered herself into the lake. A chill went through her as her toes touched the roots of the willow at the edge of the ground four feet underwater. She sunk down to her eyes so she could see the ripples forming from her body. All around her, the water's surface was crowded with tiny oak leaves and twigs. When she was finally in down to her neck, she uncapped a potion bottle and breathed in the vapors that rose from the surface deeply into her lungs until she felt her side organs freeze and zap like little electrodes were touching her alveoli over and over again. As long as she kept that breath in, she should have been able to swim all she wanted without air.

She immediately placed her feet beneath a giant root of the willow and pushed off, swirling in a downward spiral. She swam deeper and finally found the edge of the ground. The problem was she had no idea how deep the lake was. The Bladder Wrack didn't need very much light, so it could have been anywhere on the bottom. She was beginning to regret storming out on that girl from before. She must've known exactly where the Bladder Wrack was. If she'd just kept talking to her, she might've been able to coax out where the Bladder Wrack was.

Rose kept swimming down, but she didn't see any weeds along the edge of the lake. Then again, the lake was almost a kilometer wide. She could've been entirely in the wrong place. She couldn't summon it. It was stuck to the ground. It'd have to be pulled out first. She wished she had a spell to—

That's when she remembered. She _did_ have a spell. The one Albus had used in the forest. She'd never used it herself, but Albus used it to find a way out of the forest. She could use it to find her way to the Bladder Wrack! It wasn't an offensive spell. It shouldn't have had any backlash, though it probably wouldn't work correctly. It was at least worth a shot. She swished her wand, thinking, _Guide me?_ The water slowed her wand movements, but the instant the words ran through her head, a beam of red light shot from the tip of her wand and catapulted her forward. She was rocketing through the water at top speed. Pressure was forcing itself down around her, tightening its grip on her head and pushing its way into her eyes and ears like something was trying to force rocks inside of her. Damn that wand! It wasn't going to lead her there, it was _bringing_ her there. No matter what body parts were left behind.

She finally opened her eyes to find the ground quickly coming to meet her. And she wasn't slowing down for it either. She needed to let go. But the wand wouldn't let her. Her hands were glued to the stick; they wouldn't come off. She tugged and fought against it, but they were melted into the wood like tar into a highway. She tried to scream, but nothing but bubbles escaped from her mouth and the frozen vapors from the potion melted when the breath came out of her.

But when she plummeted into the overgrown weeds at the lake's bottom, she shot right through them. She opened her eyes and found herself zipping through an underground tunnel like a torpedo. And there was a light at the end of the tunnel. She shut her eyes tight as she came towards it. Solid rock. She wasn't surviving that. A crack to the head would put her unconscious and let her drown. She sped through the water and turned up and out of it. For a moment, she didn't understand. She hung in mid-air for a split second before dropping back into the pool beneath her.

She sunk deep and eventually hit the bottom where she propelled herself up and back to the surface, sputtering and coughing and blowing air out of her nose from the water that had gone up it and settled into her sinuses quite comfortably with no hope of retrieval. She treaded water in the pitch darkness of the place for a time. Her loud breaths echoed off the walls. "So it must be a cave," she reasoned. "But then why is there air?"

She took out her wand and said, "Lumos." Instantly, it shed a bright light that blinded her so magnificently; she clamped her eyes shut and tossed the stick out, over the water. "Useless," she muttered, until she heard it clatter against dry land and looked back. From its far off corner of the cave, it illuminated the wall in a pearly glow that reflected back the water's rustling onto the walls so the light just above her looked as if it was moving in waves and bubbles. "Huh," she said. "That's curious." She was just in a small pool to the side of a cave. It was a tunnel that fed into the lake.

"If I can breathe here, there must be open air just above me," she thought aloud, enjoying the sound of her echoic voice. "I just need to find it or else swim all the way back through the tunnel to the surface." Considering she'd brought none of her potion with her, the second option was quite impossible without a bubblehead charm and the chances of that working were slim.

Rose swam to the edge of the pool and climbed up on the rocks and out of the water until she was standing on solid ground. The cave was surprisingly flat. At least that she could see. She looked back and ripped some Bladderwrack seaweed from the slime on the rocks. "Least I got what I came for," she said. She spent a bit of time maneuvering around the giant masses of rock that jutted up at her feet and even ducked beneath the ones that came down far enough to reach her head, for the ceiling was relatively low, until she came upon her wand and realized her dilemma. She couldn't keep throwing it. It would get caught somewhere she couldn't reach eventually. And she needed it to see. She reached down and grabbed the head of the wand with her hands. Her skin mostly muffled it and lighted the room with a pinkish glow, but the light at the cracks of her fingers was still too bright. For a moment, she thought about putting it in her mouth, but the image of her brains exploding out the back of her skull from her wand malfunctioning came to mind and she decided against that. The only clothing she had on was her underwear…

Rose stuffed her wand in her brassiere and tightened its straps so the light wouldn't escape. "If I lose a breast, at least I've got another one," she shrugged. She walked along her way, smiling at the blue flowers that appeared on the rocks from her floral-pattered bra.

Eventually, she came upon a hole in the wall. And that's when it dawned on her. She was in the dungeons. Some old, broken-down area of them at the edge of the lake. She thought perhaps the founders would've put charms on the place to prevent corrosion, but then again, this place could have easily been created before Hogwarts. She walked through the doorway and up the stairs until she came upon a giant assortment of stones, on the other side of which, she could clearly see light. She took the wand from her…pocket and raised it.

"At least I can do the one thing it's good for," she said. "And blast my way out of here."

Rose held up her wand and breathed deeply, stepping gradually backwards. She closed her eyes and shouted, "CONFRINGO!"

She ducked as debris flew about her, but opened her eyes a few moments later to look through the smoke. She tilted her head at the hole in the wall. It was remarkably small, but it would have to do. She didn't want to blast again and risk structural damage. She would probably just fit. She pushed her head and shoulders through and was just halfway through getting out when she spotted something in her peripheral. She turned her head and saw a Slytherin boy standing to her left, watching her climb out. In her knickers. He could obviously see she only had her brassiere on.

"Slytherin party?" he asked, slumping his shoulders. He only looked to be in his third or maybe second year. He was quite small.

"Um…yes," she lied, nodding her head, red curls bouncing in cold wet chunks as they leaned sideways on her head in the odd position she was in.

"Damn it! Why wasn't I invited? Okay, who threw it? Because I want to know who I pissed off to miss out on this."

She wasn't friends with any Slytherins, so the first name that popped into her head was "Scorpius," she said, cursing herself the minute she did. What if it came back to bite Albus? He was always picking on him. Oh, well. Too late now.

"Hmph," he said, walking past her, for some reason as if nothing was particularly strange about the situation.

"Wait!" she stopped him. "Could you maybe help me?"

* * *

Albus set down The Quibbler into his lap and quirked an eyebrow. "You want me to do _what_?"

"Duel Scorpius," Patricia said.

Albus rubbed his head. "Forgive me. I did hear you the first time. I really meant _why_."

"Why? Is that even a question?! He's always throwing his weight around and manipulating people to get what he wants."

Albus stared at her for a moment. "Yes," he said. "Rather characteristic of the Slytherins. Pretty much the definition of what they are, really. Why do I need to duel someone because of it now?"

Patricia hooked her hair around her fingers the way she usually did when something odd was going on. "Well, I _may_ have told him you would duel him any time, any place."

"I'm sorry, let me get this straight. You challenged Scorpius to a duel _for_ me?"

"Yes," Patricia said.

"You mean, the one who's a year older than me and almost certainly knows more advanced spells than I do?"

"That's the one," she nodded.

Albus stared off into the distance of the Great Hall. "I need new friends," he whispered to himself.

"What?"

"I said," he responded, snapping out of it. "Why in bloody Hell would you not just fight him yourself?"

"Because I was trying to help you!"

"You have a funny way of getting that done."

Patricia rolled her eyes and slumped in her seat. "He's pompous! He thinks he can push you around just because he's older and he's a Slytherin and has scary friends!"

Albus shifted his eyes about for a moment. "Those seem like pretty good reasons."

"But you're to put this aside once and for all and destroy him!"

"And if I lose?"

"LOSING ISN'T AN OPTION, ALBUS! We must train! Come!"

"Ah, now? Forgive me, but it's still" —he checked his watch— "ten in the morning. I haven't quite woken up yet and I have these plans with Nathan to enchant the school's chess boards... It's really this whole thing we planned so we don't have to hand in our potions papers on Monday."

Patricia jumped up and the sleeping heads of the people around her rose to see the commotion. "Fine. I'll research spells myself that'll knock you off your feet and we can duel later." With that, she scampered off, through the doors of the Great Hall.

"Oh, isn't that cute," Jeremy said smiling beside him. "She places confidence in you."

"Oh, shut it."

"Are you actually going to go through with this? The whole Scorpius thing she pushed you into?"

Albus bit his lip. "Not sure yet."

Jeremy just shook his head.

"What? You know what? You just wait until you like someone."

"I've liked girls."

"For real. Not some passing fancy because some flirt smiles at you."

Albus got up and left before he could hear Jeremy's response. It was lucky he did because Jeremy didn't much have one beyond a superficial comment that neither one of them would have been satisfied with. Albus was about to walk out when he noticed Lysander eating at the Ravenclaw table and walked over.

"See you got out of the hospital wing," he greeted.

"Brand new and ready to slaughter the Gryffindors in the next game!" he said confidently.

"You wish," Albus returned, but his eyes drifted to the seats around him. "Where's Lorcan?"

"How the bloody Hell am I supposed to know?" he asked snidely, biting into his apple so juices sprayed across his cheeks.

"He's your brother."

"James is your brother. Does that mean you've got locater spell on him so you know every time he's taking a piss?"

"No, but you're twins."

"So what? That whole blooming thing about twins being connected is bollox. I'll tell you that much."

"No, I mean you share a dorm."

"But all he ever does is sleep or mope around."

"Is he sick?"

"Hell no. Lorcan's just naturally depressing and boring. Stupid. Thinks he's psychic. Trelawney's put some weird stuff into that kid's head." Lysander twirled a finger around his ear as he scooped more breakfast food onto his plate.

"Right," Albus nodded, walking away, feeling a sudden warm affection for James and Lily.

He walk out of the Great Hall and traipsed down the hallways for a bit, still trying to wake himself up. Maybe he'd go out and practice Quidditch some.

But when he turned the corner, he came face-to-face with Rose. It wasn't that he didn't usually discover Rose about. Her bright red hair made her a bit hard to miss, but today, things were a bit off. For starters, her hair was dripping wet, making curls pop out along her face. Additionally, she was wearing robes several sizes too small. Slytherin robes.

"Hello, cousin," he said, looking her up and down as she stopped before him.

"You didn't see anything," she told him.

"Yet the deed has been done."

"We can pretend this never happened."

"Rose, please tell me you killed a Slytherin and collected those as your victory trophy."

"Albus…"

Suddenly, Albus caught sight of two people travelling down the hall in their direction.

"Oh, Merlin, I can't let anyone see you like that!"

"What?"

He flicked his wand and a jet of blue light enveloped his cousin. In a quick flash, she was a finch, flapping madly about before landing on his shoulder.

As the two people neared, one of them waved to him and he realized it was Leo with a girl. The two walked up to him.

"Hey, Albus," Leo greeted.

"Oh, hey Leo," he said, leaning as casually as possible against the wall. Who's your friend?"

"Shirley," she answered.

Leo looked over at her, confused. "Shirley?"

Albus looked her over. He decided he didn't like her. Her hair and eyes were endlessly dark and when she spoke, the words sounded empty like the sound got lost traveling in her throat and it took time to find its way out and to the ears of others. Her presence made him feel like the sunny day was damp and overcast.

"Leo, what do you say we head back to the common room?" And get away from her.

Leo looked over at the girl.

"You go on," she said. "I haven't eaten yet and I'd like to talk to Frieda." But when she was done saying it, her eyes flicked directly to his and a shiver ran through him.

"Well, come on, let's go!" he shouted, a bit too enthusiastically, streaking down the hallway.

Leo soon ran after and convinced him to slow to a walk. When they were about to turn the corner, Albus looked behind him. The girl was still waiting in the same spot she'd been in down at the other end of the hallway. She hadn't moved. She was just staring at him.

"Who is that girl?" Albus asked as they walked across the green outside, taking a shortcut around the school's exterior.

"Just my friend, Carina."

"And since when do you have female friends?"

"Why does everyone seem to be commenting on that?"

"Because you hate girls."

"I don't hate Frieda. We're friends. I don't particularly hate Rose, though I wish she wouldn't torture the boys in this school."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, I wish she'd just pick one already so the other ones didn't keep trying to chase after her."

"That's not her fault, Leo. She didn't choose to be the daughter of Hermione and Ron Weasley any more than I chose to be the son of Harry Potter."

"Maybe she could stop always trying to look so pretty."

Albus scoffed. "Rose _try_ to look pretty? You're joking, right? The other day, Patricia had to take her into the bathroom and dunk her hair in the sink because she still had dirt in it from the day before."

"Yet people love her."

"What do you want her to do?! Wear robes three sizes too big, cover herself in manure, and put a box over her head? Or would her showing hands and feet be too sexually suggestive for you?"

Leo stopped and looked Albus over once. "Albus…are you a feminist?"

He paused for a moment. "Merlin's beard, I think I am. They've infiltrated the opposite sex at last. WHAT HAVE I BECOME?! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

"Albus, I was just —."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" He began frantically running about. He looked down at his hands and fell to his knees in the grass. "Rose, Patricia, Aunt Granger…what have you all done to me?!"

"I was joking," Leo called to him in the background. "Besides, it's not like it's a big deal."

"I will be ridiculed all my life through," he whispered. Then, he paused, mid-thought. "Just as women are ridiculed…"

"Oh, for the love of—."

"Fine!" he shouted, standing. "I AM A FEMINIST!" He walked up to Leo and put a hand on his shoulder. "You have opened my eyes."

"Albus, how old are you?"

"Are we talking about physical or mental age?"

Leo sighed. "Never mind."

"Oh, wait," he said. "I have to meet Nathan. Maybe I should tell him about my self-discovery."

"Better keep it to yourself," Leo advised.

"Goodbye." And he ran off, completely forgetting that he'd turned his cousin into a bird.


	18. Leo's Best Friend

Chapter 18-Leo's Best Friend

I stare down the hallway after Albus and Leo as they scamper off and wonder how they can have such energy about them, day and night. I have energy only in the sun's highest hours. My power waxes and wanes with the strength of its rays. Its eye stares down at me and commands me to do its bidding. It is interesting because today more than usual I feel it.

I look down at the ground and notice some slightly damp robes lying there. I set myself on the ground beside them and notice they belong to a Slytherin boy, but female undergarments and seaweed are inside. How very curious. Knowing the nature of this school, I have to stop myself before my imagination runs too wild. I reason the house elves probably know who they belong to considering they wash everyone's clothing, so I tie everything into a ball of fabric and am about to get up when I see a bit of motion to my right.

"Oh, hello," I smile at a little bird hopping about my feet. "I don't have any breadcrumbs for you," I tell it. It hops onto my foot so I put a finger out and the little finch hesitates, poking my still appendage with her talon before stepping aboard. I lift her to my face and tilt my head back a bit to get a better view of her. "You are remarkably bold. I have to say, though, I am surprised over something else. Don't birds all migrate when it gets cold like today?"

"What are you doing?"

I look up at Leo who's for some reason returned.

"I made a new friend," I inform him.

"Another bird? Does this often happen to you?"

I realize he is right. First Lovey and now this finch. "It must be the pearl," I reason. "Though I don't much know why it would want me to befriend birds."

"Did you name it?" he asked, bending down before me.

"It might already have one," I say. "I'll ask. What's your name?" The bird hops a bit. I look back to Leo. "I shall make it a priority to discover what she is called and why she has been parted from her kinfolk."

"Maybe she's like Darius and Sloane. An outcast." I detect sarcasm. He is making fun of me. Not that I much care.

"Perhaps she is an outlier," I whisper to the wind, though I assume Leo is so as to assume I am talking to him. "That is what we shall call her until we learn her proper name."

"Outlier? That's not a name, though. Besides, isn't that a bit insulting?"

"Not a bit. We aren't calling her strange. We're calling her unique. There is a difference."

"Is there, though? Is there really?"

"Quiet, you. That pearl is making you cynical. And you," I look to Outlier. "Run along. I cannot have you on my finger all day." I dispense of her on the ground and pick up my things. "Now, I must find where the house elves are or else discover to whom these robes belong."

So I go back to my room and deposit my things on the bed before picking up Jeremy's robes and walking back to the Great Hall where by now Frieda is only sitting to make conversation.

"Frieda," I interrupt. "Where is Jeremy?"

"Jeremy who?"

"The Gryffindor sixth-year Quidditch player."

"The Gryffindors are still on the pitch. Have been all morning. You know they've got a game tomorrow against Ravenclaw. They'll be there half the day practicing, until the other team boots them off. Why?"

"I need to give Jeremy back his Quidditch robes."

She's been poking at the pattern on her plate for a while, but she stops and slowly looks up at me. "Wait…his robes? Why do you have those?"

"Because I needed to wear them."

" _Wear them?_ Did he, like, give them to you to wear?"

"Well, I certainly didn't steal them."

"But why?" I don't quite fancy that smile she's wearing.

"Because he thought I looked cold. All I was wearing were my kickers." I walk away.

"WHAT?!" she shouts behind me, but I disregard her antics. She's always buzzing about one thing or another and this time she can't escape her crowd of followers to chase after me.

I walk out onto the grass and breathe in the fresh air. Somehow it feels different. The sun doesn't feel warm against my skin. It feels more like I'm dispensing its warmth than anything. As I walk, I almost feel a bit like the moon, reflecting all of that light about me for the world to see. For a moment I stop and let the breeze blow up through my robes and along through my hair so strands of it come flying out from the braids growing roses on my scalp. I stare across the green at the little figures swirling up through the air like little bubbles floating to the top of a glass. I am quite enthusiastic about the Quidditch game tomorrow, especially after reading heaps about the game's history in an article Leo wrote for his paper.

I smile at Outlier flying above my head. She's following me like Lovey does except Lovey usually only follows me at sundown and sunrise because she's nocturnal.

I walk down to the pitch and wait beside the stands, staring up at the magnificence of the men flying above in all of their glory. They whip this way and that in blurs of fiery red, tearing across their narrow range of sky to fight for each ball as a separate entity chases after the snitch. Jeremy I know is a chaser. I've seen him play since the start of last year. He does quite well for himself.

The Gryffindors come back to the ground so the leader can boss them about a bit, telling one if he's to feint, he's got to do it quicker, ordering the other to let the beater more room on his left. Then, he sends two up in the air to practice the moves he's asked of them for a bit. Someone whispers to the chief and points to me. I realize that standing in the shadows I must look rather sketchy, like a dementor with white glowing eyes, so I step out into the light.

"It's just a Hufflepuff," I hear the captain say.

Jeremy looks my way and does a double take, then taps the shoulder of his coach, whispers something, and runs over to me.

"Hey," he greets. "You brought them back." I stare at him for a moment. "What?" he asks, still a bit out of breath from his workout above. He smells sweaty, but I don't mind. I kind of like it.

"I just...didn't think you would recognize me, is all," I say.

Jeremy smiles and crosses his arms. "You think I would forget the girl who flew down from the roof in nothing but a slip?"

I shake my head. "No, I don't suppose you would."

He looks at me for a moment and then down at his Quidditch robes.

"Oh! You can have these back," I tell him, holding them out for him. He walks forward and takes them.

"Thanks," he says. And for a moment we say nothing. "Hey, have I seen you somewhere before?"

Every day of your life since birth? I think to myself. Our parents went to school together. We knew each other before we came to Hogwarts and we're in the same year. We've always had classes together. But I think that is a bit much, so I just stick to the monosyllabic, "Yes."

"In the lunch room?"

"We have a few classes together. I only know your name is Jeremy because you're on the Quidditch team and you draw for Leo's paper," I lie. "I'm Carina."

"Oh, yeah, I know," he responds. No he didn't. We both lie. "We've just never much talked."

"I understand," I say, saving him from an uncomfortable explanation of why he'd just asked if he'd ever seen me, yet knew who I was. "I hope you win." I wink.

"Win?"

"The Quidditch game tomorrow against Ravenclaw."

"Oh, yeah? You got friends in Gryffindor?"

"Leo's in Gryffindor."

" _You're_ Leo's friend?" He stared at me incredulously.

"Why so surprised?"

"Because Leo…" I cock my head. "Ah…it's just…many people can get the wrong impression. He's a friendly guy, but he doesn't really consider everybody he talks to his friends."

Ah, I see. Jeremy doesn't think Leo and I are really friends. In truth, he may be right. I think we are friends because he is the only person save Frieda who I have ever spoken with in Hogwarts who has remembered me. Still, I get the strange impression Jeremy thinks lowly of me and it irks me. I don't know why. I've never been put off by what others think of me before, but I can't stand to think he has me wrong in his head.

"I know," I say nodding. "He's more closed off than he makes the appearance of. Many of his closest friends don't even know what they mean to him. Between you and me, I think you are his very best friend."

"Really. And…why do you say that?"

"Because he trusts you and confides in you and talks about you more than most."

"Oh."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing, it's just…between you and me, I don't know if he's my best friend or not."

"Is there someone else?"

He shakes his head. "I guess not."

"Then let it be so. But in secret." I smile.

He knits his eyebrows and leans against the structural support of the stands. "That's a weird thing to keep a secret. Don't you think we should let Leo in on it?"

"He'll find out for himself. We've just got to wait a bit. He's still on his guard because of his mother."

His playful grin drops. "You know about Leo's mother?"

I nod my head as a breeze comes and pops the collar of my uniform up against my neck. "It's a sad thing, but I think she'll come back to him." And then I realize what I've said and I cover my mouth and look over to him. "Oh, please don't tell him I said that! I didn't mean to!"

He straightens his back and walks close to me. He leans in near to me in the shadows of the bleachers. "Why did you say that? You haven't told Leo that, have you? That's not funny."

"I didn't mean for it to be funny! It's the truth! And no, I wouldn't dare tell Leo! Things will work out in the end. Though I can't see past this day, I can feel further. Something strange surrounds it all. I know it."

He looks me over, fascinated for a moment. "Lorcan says the same thing about his mother."

"Did she leave too?"

"No. Maybe I shouldn't say, but she's ill. Degenerative spell, I suppose. Hit to the brain, making her mad. But Lorcan thinks she'll come back. Do me a favor and don't tell either of them we talked, okay?"

"You don't have to ask. I won't tell anyone. Though I did tell Frieda I was coming and your teammates are watching us."

He looks over his shoulder at his teammates impatiently waving to him to come back over.

"I didn't mean it that way. People can know—."

"I know what you meant," I say. "But all I did here was return your Quidditch robes and chat about the weather."

He looks my face over slowly, examining my black eyes like there's something inside them he's trying to find.

"What?" I ask. "Is there something on my face?"

"No, it's just…you really are Leo's friend, aren't you? He tells you things."

"I certainly hope I am, but it's hard to tell with him."

"I'm afraid I know exactly what you mean. Say…does he tell you anything he doesn't tell me; do you think?"

I shake my head. "I don't think so. We really just met a few weeks ago."

"You just met and Leo told you about his mother?"

"HEY, JEREMY!" a teammate shouted. "GET OVER HERE!"

"I'LL BE RIGHT THERE! CAN'T YOU SEE I'M BUSY?!"

He turns back, but suddenly his interest in me makes me realize. No one's that interested in me. I'm afraid he's trying to suck information from me. Like suddenly he's found some fount of information on Leo to get the latest news on his friend. He's no Slytherin, but anyone can be manipulative. Just look at the very girl I am. I use people for my own ends on a daily basis. Even if Jeremy's intentions are pure, just to know more about his friend, I don't want that to be the only reason he's talking to me.

"Well, it was a pleasure speaking with you, but I should be going. I'll let you practice," I say quickly.

"Don't worry about them. They can wait. We've been at it for hours."

"I don't like talking about Leo and Lorcan behind their backs," I tell him straight out. He looks surprised, like he wasn't thinking we were and I fear I've misjudged him, but I must continue to make my point clear. "I worry about Leo, but I won't tell you a thing I don't think he's already told you. It wouldn't be prudent or true."

"I didn't expect you to," he said, "but I'm sorry if it seemed that way."

I'm not expecting this quick apology. I'm rather taken aback and can't hide the pleased smile that forms on my face and all of a sudden we're both smiling and just then we start laughing for no reason at all and I don't know what's happening for everything started so very serious and now we just find ourselves silly.

"But I should go," I tell him. "I have other things I've to get done."

"Hey," he stops me as I turn to leave. "Gryffindors are having a party if we win. There'll probably be people from other houses there."

"How very smashing," I tell him. "I do hope you enjoy yourself."

"Ah...What are you doing tomorrow night?"

"Hm..." I think. Leo is a Gryffindor. He will be at the gathering, so I can't much expect him to stay up with the dwarves and me in the darkness brainstorming. Besides, I need my sleep to get up at sunrise. "I'll probably run barefoot through the grass around Hogwarts with the foxes until I'm tired. Then, I was thinking of building a little home out of wood for the gnomes. They always try to bite me, so perhaps if I do something nice, we can resolve our differences."

Jeremy stares at me for a spell. "Oh," he says simply. "Well, if you're not too busy with that, you could come to the party."

"I could," I nod. I've never been to a Gryffindor party before. They always run so late and I like my sleep. Perhaps I shall ask Leo what they are like to see if I should go. I sigh. "Well, I shall have to weigh my options. I'll ask Leo if that's okay. Goodbye."

"Wait, why would you..."

I run off and Outlier takes off to fly in my wake.


	19. Plots of the Forlorn

Chapter 19-Plots of the Forlorn

"Has anyone seen Rose?" Patricia asked. She shuffled her hair about after letting it loose from her ponytail. "We were supposed to brew some Plumium Nightgale today and pour it into some old socks."

"That's not strange at all," Nathan said as his bishop moved across the chess board and eliminated Albus's pawn.

"I wanted to ask her what she wants for her birthday. It's coming up."

Albus paused. "Rose? Red-headed Rose?"

"Do you know another one?"

"Oh…I turned her into a finch earlier..."

Nathan and Patricia looked at him simultaneously, waiting for more. Evidently, there wasn't any more and Albus commanded his queen to move several spaces forward.

"You turned her into a finch?" Nathan asked.

"Oh, yeah. I…probably nothing."

"Probably nothing what?"

"It's just…those spells wear off right?"

Nathan raised his eyebrows. "Merlin's beard. You can't be serious."

"YOU DIDN'T CHANGE HER BACK?!" Patricia screamed. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! WHERE IS SHE?!"

Albus smiled sheepishly. "That's a very good question."

"WHAT?! You don't know where she is?!"

"Well, she sort of flew off and… Well, I made a self-discovery earlier today which rather distracted me from what I'd been doing. You know, I realized I'm a feminist."

"FOCUS, ALBUS! Your cousin is missing and it's your fault! Do you—wait, what? _You're_ a—You know what? It doesn't matter. We'll talk later. Look at me, Albus. Do you know how dangerous it is for birds out there? She's never had to live in the wild and finches are so tiny. We might never find her!"

"When you put it like that…I'm inclined to think…Oh no. What if she was eaten by a hawk or something? Or a cat? Or a hippogriff? What if she was captured for her beautiful feathers to be used as a quill!"

Nathan rubbed his forehead, muttering, "Gryffindors…"

"What should we do?" Albus asked. "She could be anywhere. Aunt Hermione's going to be livid if we don't find her!"

"What are you asking me for? I don't know what to do!" Patricia squealed.

"Would you two stop panicking? She survived the Forbidden Forest; she can certainly survive a few hours as a finch," Nathan told them, standing. "Now, take some initiative."

Albus and Pat stood by one another and exchanged a thoughtless glance of pure nothingness.

"Oh, Merlin, fine. Here's what we do. Rose will probably wander back here eventually. Our main priority is circulating the lie that Scorpius turned her into a finch."

"What?" Albus asked. "No, no, I cannot do that. You see, that bloke already wants to kill me several times over."

"So once more shouldn't hurt," Nathan reasoned. "We'll set traps around the school for her that she'll hopefully be smart enough to go into and hopefully the administration will be so focused on Malfoy, they won't even think of you, giving us the time to find her. Meanwhile, to keep Rose from killing you, brew the potion the two of you were going to make and, come to think of it, if Rose wants to make a wand, get her the rest of the ingredients for her birthday. When you find her and change her back, she'll be happy not to have to spend the money and doubly happy that Malfoy finally got into trouble for something that wasn't his fault after causing the very same for other people in this school. She's a firm believer in justice."

"Did you just come up with that?" Pat asked. "That's quite good."

"He's the mastermind behind most of our plots," Albus confessed.

"But how do we trap a finch?" Pat asked.

"She's not really a finch," Nathan said. "It's Rose. Just think of something that'll make her come."

"Pumpkin juice," Albus and Patricia said in unison.

"Okay, pumpkin juice. Whatever. I have to get going."

"You're not going to help us?" Patricia asked.

"No. I've Quidditch practice." With that, he walked off and left the two.

* * *

"Leo!" Carina ran up to the boy just outside the doors to the Great Hall. "I need to warn you. The Pearl… It's planning something."

Leo raised his eyebrows. "It's _planning_ something?"

"I don't know what it is, but…"

"Yeah. The Pearl is dangerous. Tell me something I don't know."

"It's not just that. Remember how my curse has changed? It's more than just that now. I know things now that I have no right knowing. Somehow, I knew that there was Bladderwrack seaweed at the bottom of the lake. I don't know where that information came from; I just knew it. So I essentially goaded Rose into going to get some for her wand."

"You think the Pearl gave you that information so Rose could finish her wand?"

"It has to be that! But I don't know how it could possibly know that. It knows all sorts of things, Leo. It's been telling me this and that and I've just been following along and doing what it asks because now I'm the Pearl's slave as much as I am the sun's. I don't want to be another object's slave, Leo! What do you want from me?!"

"Carina, I understand that you're upset, but please don't yell at my navel."

"What do I do, Leo? Scorpius is going to be in detention later and I'm going to meet him there."

"For what?"

"I don't know. I have absolutely no idea what he got in trouble for or what I need to talk to him about, but I know I need to be there and it'll all just…I don't know, fit together when the time comes. I know it sounds insane. It is."

"You can't just not do what it tells you?"

"What'll happen though? The dwarves seem to think I'm it's true owner and it wants me. If that's true, then maybe it's doing all of this to try and create a possible future in which we find out how to get the Pearl out of you."

"Or the dwarves could be wrong and the Pearl could want to go to Jagobin or someone else equally as terrible and is just manipulating us into thinking otherwise."

She shook her head. "I don't know the extent of its powers, but there is one thing that I can trust. The sun. Ever since I was cursed by it, I've learned it's more powerful than anything. The Living Pearl is no more than a grain of sand to it's million Earths. As long as it flows through me, it overpowers whatever the Pearl might possess."

"But it changed your curse."

"My curse connects me to the sun, yes, but it's ultimately tethered to the enchanted waters in the dungeons where I got it. It's like…a wand. It has a creator and then is passed off to someone who will use it for the rest of their life. The dungeon pool is my creator, but the sun is my owner. Right now, there's a power struggle between the Living Pearl and the enchanted waters, not the sun. In other words, the Pearl can only change those aspects of my curse controlled by the enchanted waters, not by the sun. Does that make sense?"

"Er…sort of."

"Again, a fish swimming against the current. It's nearly impossible to explain if you don't experience it for yourself. There are certain...magical laws involved that I've never experienced before. It's similar to the nuances of the legal system in which certain things are allowed while others aren't. Inherent in the nature of magic, the Pearl can only change certain things and my reasoning isn't one of them."

"How do you know the Pearl hasn't planted that idea in your mind?"

"Because it's been there long before that talisman came into the picture."

* * *

"I'll bet you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today," Albus said, standing atop the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall.

"Because you lost your cousin," George said.

"Stating the obvious. Don't be so rude," Leo told her. "He feels bad enough as it is."

"He doesn't much act like it."

"Well, maybe you'd see he does if you weren't so quick to judge negatively."

"Oh, and you wouldn't know anything about that."

"Guys, please," Albus stopped them. "I know you're not fans of one another, but we need to work together here. Rose will eventually wander back, but until then, we're going to have to shop around Hogwarts a bit in order to get the proper materials for Rose's wand so she doesn't horribly injure me."

"And why would we care about your safety?" George asked.

"Because Rose is your friend and you should want what she wants. I can't much call on my mates if this wand business is to remain a secret between those Rose has entrusted it to: myself, Patricia, Frieda, Mary, George, Leo, and…I'm sorry, who are you?"

"Carina," the girl replied.

"Right," he nodded. He held up a sheet of parchment. "Here, you can see, is a list of all the ingredients necessary for Rose's wand potion."

George walked forward and snatched the sheet from his fingers, reviewing it.

"Most of this is around Hogwarts," she admitted, "but we'll never manage to find Bladderwrack on school grounds. It doesn't live around here."

"Pessimistic as always," Leo commented.

"I wasn't being pessimistic. I was being realistic. There's no use in looking for it if it isn't here."

"I have some," Carina said.

Everyone looked over at her.

"This is Carina," Leo introduced.

George gave him a look. "I know her name. She just said it."

Leo looked confused for a moment, but Carina just smiled. Odd. She didn't know what was going on there, but she was going to find out.

"Leo and I can find the ginger. I know where the kitchens are," George volunteered.

Leo scoffed. "Find it yourself."

"Great. I'll assign a different one to you. Know what Eriophorum looks like?"

Leo paused. "Well, I—."

"Go with her, Leo," Carina urged him.

"You don't want to work together?"

"It isn't that," she said. "I know some places in which to look for Rose."

George folded her arms. "Since when are you Rose's friend?"

"Five years now. We met at a family gathering." To which George's family was never invited. Who was she?

"I didn't know you were her friend. She never talks about you."

"Funny, I was going to say the same about you."

George suddenly had a stronger desire to find out if Rose was really friends with this girl, but she'd already made a fuss about being with Leo.

While the two of them traipsed along a line of windows at the edge of the building towards the kitchens, George walked ahead and asked, "Who is that girl? Where did she come from, I mean? I don't remember ever seeing her before and now it seems like she's friends with everyone." Her eye caught the Ravenclaws practicing on the pitch for their game the next day outside the window. There was a dark-haired figure moving through the field beside it.

"Jealous?" Leo asked.

George stopped and turned around to face him. "Certainly not. I'm just worried. I like to look out for my friends and I'm not sure who she is."

"Right. But I was talking about the Quidditch players."

Her face went bright red. "Oh."

"Maybe if you'd taken my advice, you would've made the team."

"Your advice! 'Choke the bat.' What does that even mean?"

"Take out your quill."

"Take out my quill?"

"Here." Leo removed his quill from his robes and held it at the very end, crushing the feathers in his fingers. "Would I succeed writing like this?"

"What are you getting at?"

"You'll have a fine time writing like this. You've got to hold a quill as near to the tip as possible. You want to know why?"

"You're not as close to the page?"

"Less control. You're swinging to miss if you hold the bat in a ball at the end like you do."

"What do you know about Quidditch? You don't play."

"I've plenty of friends who do."

She pushed the quill back into his hands.

"For your information, I wanted to be a beater ."

"There's a surprise."

"But chaser was the only position left open. I didn't get it because I'm no good at that."

"Would be if you practiced."

"Maybe I won't need to," she smiled, walking on.

Leo followed after her quickened pace. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She shrugged. "Nothing. It's just I've been watching Lorcan lately. He's slower, doesn't pay attention as much. They lost the last game because of him. I hear if he misses one more practice they'll cut him from the team. I can just take his position."

Leo ran after her as she flew down the stairs, her robes billowing out behind her.

"You can't be serious."

"Where're all those friends who play Quidditch now? Certainly not keeping you in the loop, are they?" Her voice echoed up through the stairway.

"George, you can't take Lorcan's spot!"

She swiveled to face him at the bottom of the stairs, but he hadn't been expecting it so they came very close face to face when he finally managed to stop.

"It's not up to me, is it?" she said snidely.

He grabbed her shoulders before she ran off again. "George, Lorcan's—." he stopped.

George leaned in closer to his face so their noses nearly touched.

"Lorcan's what?"

"Nothing," he said, pushing her away. "It isn't my secret to tell." He pushed past her despite the fact that he had no idea where the kitchens were.

"Leo Wespurt, you are just full of secrets."

"And you're a pitiful gossip."

"I am not a gossip," she laughed from behind him. "I keep what I know to myself. I just don't like to be ignorant of the goings-on in this school."

Leo slowed his walking at the comment and looked at her. "And what about just the world in general?"

"The world has a fine amount of things happening in it, Leo."

"I know, I just…do you like to write?"

"Write? Stories and things? Of course, I can't imagine anyone enjoys writing essays. Sure, I like to write. How good I am is a matter of perspective though, isn't it?"

"I suppose so."

"Why? What are you getting at?"

"Nothing. Don't worry about it."

She jumped in front of him and began walking backwards.

"I'm going to find out what you mean so you might as well spill it."

"Not happening."

"Then I'll have to do it the hard way." She smiled before bumping into the picture behind her and turning about. "Oh. This is it."

* * *

When the two returned, the rest of the group was waiting and talking in the Great Hall.

"I hope they get back before dinner," Mary was saying. "We'll have to go to an abandoned classroom."

"There they are," Patricia was saying. "Luck I hope?"

George held up the ginger and a rather large assortment of food the house elves had forced on them.

"The house elves didn't seem to realize we're about to eat in an hour," she said, setting the food on the table.

"Ungrateful. It's food, George. _Food_ ," Albus informed her.

"You'll spoil your dinner."

"Pfft." As he went to snatch the food, Leo grabbed it and pulled the bags off the table. Albus threw his hands up. "What are you doing?"

"I…uh…" _I have to take this to two dwarves I am currently hiding in the dungeons._ "George is right. You'll spoil your dinner."

"Who are you, my mother? Give it here."

"I found Rose."

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Albus screamed. "WHERE DID YOU COME FROM…?"

"Carina."

"…Carina, yes, I knew that. Your name is Carina."

"It's fine," she told him. In that moment, a little bird swooped down onto the table and poked its head about.

"You found her!" Albus shouted, surprised. "Unless, you just have an uncanny knack for picking up finches."

"So that's why Outlier liked you earlier in the day," Leo realized. "It was Rose the whole time."

"She was in the owlery with Lovey," Carina told them. "I thought she might be with my bird."

Leo crossed his arms. "Your bird? My bird."

"No. My bird. She likes me better."

"She does not."

"Alright, let's get her back to normal before dinner," Albus said, raising his wand.

"Wait!" Carina stopped him. He paused. "When you transfigured her the first time, she didn't change with her clothes."

"There's a relief." The group gave him an odd look. "Ah, no, you see, I didn't mean it like…just forget it. What are you getting at?"

"She'll be naked, Albus." Carina removed her winter cloak and threw it down over the finch. "There."

Albus flicked his wand and recited the reversal spell so arms and legs grew from Carina's cloak. Rose wrapped the black sleeve around her. She looked directly at Carina.

"Carina!" she exclaimed getting down from the table. "I need to talk to you." She looked down at herself. "Preferably tomorrow when I've some actual clothes on."

George crossed her arms and watched the scene from sidelines. So they were friends. Odd. Rose had a very small group of close friends which George couldn't even say that she was a part of. Leo couldn't say he was very surprised. Carina had stopped surprising him very early on.

* * *

Scorpius sat on the stone ground in detention, scrubbing at the floor. "Lousy Potter family. I hate them. I hate every last one! Just because their precious Rose went missing, everyone just assumes it was me."

"Frustrating, isn't it?"

His head jolted up and he shot to his feet at the sight of a dark figure that had been sitting just on the floor beside him. How did he miss her? When did she come in? That was impossible. The room was empty. He would've noticed her.

"Who are you?!" he asked. "And what are you doing in detention?"

"You don't remember me?" she asked, a bit disappointed. "I suppose that's rather expected. You tend to ignore people."

"Get out of here. I'd rather spend my detention time in peace."

"I know you didn't turn Rose into a finch."

"Really? Thanks. Now scat."

"The Potter lineage does have too much influence at this school. It really isn't fair," she said. Still fuming over being thrown in detention, he took the bait.

"Albus wouldn't make it halfway to the passing mark if his parents didn't know every teacher like a relative. Rose the Brilliant would get crashing grades in Charms too, I bet."

"Why would you say that?"

"Have you seen her? Completely incompetent, even if she is amazing in her other classes. Pure stupidity, if you ask me."

"She's making a wand for herself to try and get it to bond to her so she'll perform spells properly."

Scorpius broke into a caustic laugh. "She's going to all the trouble of making a wand? For such a clever witch, she really lacks common sense." He smirked. "I'd like to see it when she's finally got her brand new wand all bright and shiny and then the same thing happens as with all her other ones! Merlin, what a bloody monumental waste of time, money, and talent."

"She's making it during the game."

"She's missing the game? But Gryffindor's playing."

"Before the game starts, Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. You should watch."

"Please. I've got better things to do than follow girls around, watching their idle activities."

"Because I think you're jealous of Rose Weasley."

He smirked. "Jealous of Rose Weasley?! You must be joking."

"Deny it all you like, but your family situations were once reversed. Yours was one of respectability and the Weasleys were poor and little-known. I think you wish you could be like Rose and Albus."

"What the Hell right have you got to go rummaging around in my personal business?! Get out of here! I'm just trying scrub the floor in peace!"

"Somehow, I expected a better comeback from a Slytherin," the girl sighed. "But I won't leave. I still need your help."

"My help? Why would I help you with anything?"

"Because I can help you. I've heard your conversations with Patricia in the dungeons."

Scorpius stepped back and widened his eyes in surprise. He gripped his wand inside his pocket, though he knew he wouldn't use it.

"And so you know everything."

"Perhaps not so much as everything, but enough to grasp that we can help each other."

She turned her head and looked straight into his eyes. The distant black orbs of infinitesimal darkness made his arm involuntarily release his wand and he shook down the shiver that ran through his body.

"We can help each other," he repeated robotically. He sat down on the ground beside her. "How?"


	20. The Quidditch Are Coming

Chapter 20-The Quidditch Are Coming

Jeremy and Leo were in the Gryffindor boys' dormitories. It was really quite early, but Jeremy was already in bed. He'd have to get up before the sun even came up for a quick practice before the game tomorrow. He'd already taken a sleeping potion. It just took a while to drift off with the adrenaline from that day and the next day's anticipations still running through him. Just thinking about being high and streaking through the air with the wind lapping back his robes as he kept sharp for the other players darting around him was enough to counteract the sleeping potion in its weak beginning stages. He tried to think of something else. Anything else. Something calm and sleepy. But when he thought of clouds, he thought of swirling through them on his broomstick. And when he thought of just simple grass, he was falling from his broom and crashing against the pitch and tearing it open so the grass flew over the field and patches of dirt were ripped free. And owls, he was one of them, hunting for mice, but instead of tearing them apart with his beak he threw them through hoops. No matter what he thought of, he turned it into Quidditch. It wasn't his fault. The past week had been completely Quidditch every free moment to prepare for this game. He loved Quidditch, but he felt like it was consuming him slowly, like if it was a monster, he was sliding down its throat which just made him feel claustrophobic.

Jeremy threw the sheets off of the bed. Even with the snow outside, he was overheated. He closed his eyes and tried to let the potion take effect. He just thought of just simple darkness. But when he just closed his eyes to see the black backs of his eyelids, he saw that girl. When he'd looked over at her from the Quidditch pitch, he could only see shadow at first. She was a silhouette that just absorbed the sunlight around her. Darkness followed her everywhere. She was like a black hole, undulating at the edge of the Quittich field.

She seemed _off_ , but not in a bad way, just in a way that made him curious. The last bit of their conversation still had him perplexed _. "…you could come to the party." "I will ask Leo if that's okay."_

"Are you dating Carina Honeycomb?" he asked suddenly.

Leo looked up from his work at the desk. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he needed to finish his essay.

"Sorry?" he yawned.

"Carina Honeycomb. She's a sixth year Hufflepuff."

"I know who she is. I just didn't think you did."

"Well, I do now. Carina told me she couldn't go to the party with me until she asked you if that was alright. Are you two dating or something? Because why else would she say that unless she was worried you'd think she was leading me on?"

Leo tilted his head. "You asked Carina to go to the party with you?"

"Don't change the subject. Do you have a girlfriend?"

"No. I don't know why she would..."

"What?"

"Nothing. No, we're not dating. Carina can just be clueless at times which often causes her to give people the wrong idea."

"Oh. Seems like her."

"Seems like her? You don't even know her. I can't believe you even remember her."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Most people don't, is all."

"Really? She's certainly nothing I'd ever forget."

"Jeremy, she's sat next to you every day in History of Magic since September and she's been in our classes since we arrived at Hogwarts six years ago. And you forgot her then. You'll forget her again."

Jeremy didn't say anything. Leo was right.

* * *

George puffed as she ran up the stairs to the Ravenclaw boys' dormitories. She hated being some errand girl for the Ravenclaws. They were practicing in the early morning before the game and Lorcan hadn't arrived again. The two of them weren't friends, but she knew him well enough to know he loved Quidditch. So, what was he thinking, behaving the way he was? Something must've been going on and she was, yet again, out of the loop. She wasn't very good at making friends. In fact, most of the ones she had were in Slytherin, as was her first, rather fleeting, boyfriend. All the others were just members of Frieda's vast friend group and anyone could be friends with Frieda. Thus being said, she wasn't commonly informed on why people may have behaved strangely. It was like the day before when Leo looked ready to tell her something important about Lorcan, but something had stopped him. She was sure it was her. If she had been Jeremy or Rose or even that Carina girl, Leo would have told her exactly what was on his mind. She wished she could be that friend. What made her seem so untrustworthy? She'd never let a secret slip in her life.

George burst through the door to shout to Lorcan to wake the bloody hell up; he needed to get to practice, when she stopped in her tracks. Paper crinkled beneath her feet.

"Let's see here…"

George examined the room which looked like a printer's playboy mansion. Ink and parchment lay strewn between clothes and books as Lorcan examined separate sheets of paper from the center of the room. The entire place was covered in paper and ink.

"Mate…" George said.

Lorcan turned to face her. "Oh, George, don't ruin my papers! Those haven't dried yet!"

George squatted to pick up the parchment which she'd stepped on to examine a list of utter nonsense. To her, at least. The paper was covered in symbols from top to bottom which danced about the page in no apparent order like they'd been written on a whim without regard for what was actually being said. She looked up from the paper at Lorcan who was had been biting into a ham sandwich until he stopped to stare at something on his page and dropped the bread, leaving the meat to dangle at his mouth as he scribbled along the page…or rather diagonally across the page.

"Ah…Lorcan?"

"Hm?"

"Why are you…Er…You know you have the Quidditch game against Gryffindor today."

"Oh? Yeah. Team's off practicing."

George didn't take her eyes off the boy. "And you didn't feel at all inclined to go with them?"

He looked up and stopped, looking back at the ground, catching the two of them in an odd sort of pause. It appeared he needed some time to think about the question. "No…" he said. "I suppose I didn't…" he ended the statement by wandering back into his pages, scrawling something onto the parchment with his quill.

"And, if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing, exactly?"

He paused again, mid-scribble. "You see, I actually do mind you asking." He continued writing.

"Really."

"Yes."

"I see." George nodded and then snapped. "What are you doing?! You've a game this afternoon and you haven't practiced in days! Do you know how hard your team has worked to get to this point only to have it crushed by one lousy player? Get out there now and practice!"

"Look, can't you see I'm busy?" the boy said, looking directly at her.

She paused, staring at him. He looked like he hadn't gotten a lick of sleep. His hair was clumped to one side the way it got on test days when he rubbed the side of his head. It wasn't like the two of them were friends. Frieda was her friend and Lorcan was Frieda's friend. She was nowhere to be seen, not that she would've been particularly concerned with the current situation. Frieda didn't much concern herself with anything. She had to get him out of this room, not because she cared about Lorcan, but because she had the feeling he was the ticket to figuring out whatever was going on in this school that everyone, for some reason, seemed to know about but her.

George grabbed a handful of papers and cut out of the Ravenclaw dormitories, through Hogwarts, until she reached the Quidditch field. She scrambled onto the pitch and waved to the players above. Nathan, who'd been the one to send her, came down towards her on his broom and hopped off in front of her.

"What is it?" he asked. "Where's Nathan?"

She looked above at the players, then pulled him to the side, into the boys' empty changing room and shoved the papers into his face.

"When I got there he was drawing these. Do you have any idea what this nonsense is?"

Nathan scanned the papers and looked back at her. "Why didn't you bring him with you?"

"He was engrossed in whatever this is. He won't leave the dorms. What is it?"

"Nothing. Thanks. Don't worry. I'll just get him myself."

George grabbed his robes to keep him from walking off.

"Nathan. What is going on with Lorcan? He hasn't been playing his best all season and don't think I haven't caught on to the connection between this and the whole Rose thing."

Nathan knitted his brow. "The whole Rose thing?"

"Don't play dumb. I know just about everyone but me knows what's going on here. The finch, the potion, that weird black girl."

"Weird black girl…"

"Carina."

"Never heard of her."

George grabbed his face and looked into his eyes before he threw her hand off like he'd been scalded. "What are you doing?!"

George smirked. "I think you're telling the truth."

"Stop being so cryptic. What is all of this about?"

George held up a sheet filled with symbols. "I'll tell you if you tell me where you recognize these from."

He looked them over.

"I can't be sure, but I think they're the same runes Lorcan's mother has been drawing in St. Mungo's."

George paused. "Mrs. Scamander is in St. Mungo's?"

"I'm sure Lorcan and Lysander would be happier if you kept that to yourself."

"So that's what Leo was about to tell me yesterday!"

"He what?! I'm going to kill him!"

"Nathan!" a boy shouted. It was the team captain, looking muscular and grim as ever. "Where's Lorcan?"

"It doesn't look like he'll be able to come," Nathan told him reluctantly.

The captain looked ready to pop a blood vessel.

"But it's alright. I'll play for him," George told him presumptuously.

The captain scoffed. " _You_ play? Please. You were murder at tryouts."

"I'm from Ravenclaw and can ride a broom. The requirements for this field end there. A beater's job is hardly more difficult than whacking and I certainly do murder there."

He looked to Nathan who shrugged.

"We'll put her in," the captain agreed. "What's the worst that could happen? It's not as if Lorcan would've saved us from the Gryffindors."

George turned back to Nathan. "We'll finish this conversation later."

"Agreed," he said. "Now, get some robes on. You've got a lot of practice before the game if you don't want to make a complete fool of yourself."


	21. Wand Potion

Chapter 21-Wand Potion

Rose was sitting at the lunch table, egg dangling at the edge of her fork as she watched people shove food down their throats so they could hurry and get seats for the game. She could hardly focus on the game, what with what was about to happen.

"So today's the day."

"Ah!" Rose jumped at the dark figure which had settled beside her. "Carina?" How did she do that?

"You're making your wand today," she said.

"Ah…How did you know that?"

Carina smiled and rested her head in her hand. "Call it intuition. Anyway, I'd like to see it."

"Y-You would?" Not even Patricia wanted to miss this game. It was promised to be a show. "You don't want to see the Quidditch match?"

"I've seen it," she said. "It's a shame you're to miss it."

Rose looked her over for a moment, bewildered. Her hair was down in long, loose curls that she'd clearly put in with a fine potion of some sort. They were just too perfect. What she didn't understand was what potion she could've used for that nighttime color that made her think of storm clouds moving across the daytime sky, blocking out the sun.

She'd never spoken to Carina outside of the time she'd spent as a bird, but it didn't seem to make a difference to the girl. They were just as good of friends now, sitting side-by-side, as they had been yesterday when she sat on the girl's shoulder as a finch. In fact, she still felt a bit like a bird, as odd as it was to say, but only now that she was with Carina. Rose had many strange feelings around the girl. Though they'd just met yesterday, she felt as if she'd spoken to her hundreds of times.

"Have you eaten already?" she asked, stuffing some food into her mouth in case she had and wanted to leave.

"I've been here for a while, yes."

"Then, if you're not going to the game, we should go start making my wand."

"Pocahontas!" Frieda shouted, strutting up to the two of them at the relatively empty Gryffindor table. "Are you coming with me to the Quidditch match?"

"No," she said simply, grabbing a bit of toast and pinching a piece off of the end.

Frieda looked astonished. "No?! What do you mean? You're not sitting in the Hufflepuff section?"

"I'm busy helping a friend."

"Friend? What friend? You don't have any friends."

"Of course she does. We're very good friends," Rose said, though she wasn't quite sure where it came from.

Frieda scrunched her eyebrows. "You are? Since when? Yesterday?"

"Ah…" Well…

"Yes," Carina told her truthfully.

"And you're to be helping her with a chore today, is that right?"

"She isn't trying to take advantage of me, Frieda. She's helping me a bit more than I am her, actually." Rose gave her a quizzical look. She was? What was she talking about?

"Oh…well, bother. I thought for sure you'd want to come to cheer on Jeremy, at the very least."

"Oh, that's right, Jeremy," Rose smiled.

"Why would I bother cheering on just Jeremy?"

"Don't play stupid, Pocahontas. You fancy that boy."

"And this is based off of what evidence? The robes I borrowed from him? They were just robes."

"They were not _just_ robes! They were _his_ robes that he wanted _you_ to wear."

"He was just being nice."

"Oh, please," Frieda scoffed. "Boys are nice when it's convenient."

"You are just like Leo. He places witches in these categories just as you place wizards into them."

"Because wizards are stupid prats with sticks up their arses."

"Does this have anything to do with Sean?"

She sat down at the table as Rose added bacon to her stomach mechanically, watching the two.

"Oh, Pocahontas, it's awful! He's run off with that Natasha Patil."

"Natasha?" Rose asked. "I thought she was Zabini's girlfriend."

"She _was_ Zabini's girlfriend. She left him for Sean. You're obviously not in on the latest gossip if you don't know. Sean and Zabini actually dueled and Zabini lost by a long shot. Wish I could duel like that. It was a good show. Zabini actually managed to get a good shot at Sean's face and made his face sag low all day. Both of them were in the hospital wing. I can't believe you don't know this."

Carina and Rose exchanged glances.

"I can," Rose said. "It's just trivial gossip and drama. I don't see how anyone can keep up. It must consume so much of your time."

Frieda turned her nose up. "I like to know what people are up to. I'm going to be a politician one day, you know."

"I didn't know that, Frieda," Carina said.

"Well, it's true. I'm going to rework the whole social services bureaucracy. It's simply criminal the way they treat orphans and children of bad homes."

"That's very well, Frieda. I admire that."

Frieda smiled. "Well, thanks. I should be getting to the game, though. You're sure you don't want to come and watch?"

"I'm sure," she said.

"Fine, then. I'm off." With that, she left and ran up to some people leaving the room, catching onto the conversation quicker than anyone ever could.

Rose looked over at Carina, finishing off her plate of breakfast.

"So, she's your friend, is she?"

"Yes. She's very social."

"That's one way of putting it."

The Great Hall was near empty, the professors having left before to make their way to the Quidditch match before the onslaught of children trampled them.

"I've got everything in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom," Rose told her, getting up.

"I know," Carina said. "I would have met you there, but I didn't want to scare you. I know you don't recall telling me about any of it."

Rose was silent for a moment as they walked from the Great Hall.

"You've got one of those time-turners, haven't you? Those things that were destroyed year ago during the war. You've got one."

"If I had a time-turner, you'd know it."

"So then what is your deal? Why do you know all of this? Are you a psychic?"

"Not in the traditional sense, but yes. I couldn't explain it, though, so don't ask me to."

"So, when I was a bird, did you know it was me?"

"I had my suspicions about you, but I never guessed you were Rose, no."

"So you don't know everything."

She smiled. "That would be quite impossible."

"But you're the one who gave me my idea for the wand."

Carina stopped and turned to Rose, her eyes swirling circles of grey and black. "How did you know that?"

"Lovey told me all about you."

"Lovey? Lovey is a bird."

"And she's followed you around through our adventures with goblins and Leo and standing half-naked on the roof and everything. She's perplexed by you. She doesn't know what to make of it all. Neither do I. You erase people's memories of you."

"Not on purpose," Carina promised her.

"But you've been around me a lot more than just yesterday and today, haven't you?"

"It's true. I talk to you often, but how could Lovey have told you all of that? Can birds really pick up on all that's been going on and communicate it so effectively? If so, they must be far more magical than I thought."

"Well, that's just the thing, Carina. Remember yesterday when I said I needed to talk to you about something? There's something that you and Leo don't know about Lovey."

* * *

Jeremy gripped his broom as he stood on the Quidditch field and watched as the captains walked forward and strangled each other's hands, their eyes locked in furious stares. He looked out across the pitch at the green figures on the grass and noticed a lack of Lorcan Scamander. His brother, Lysander, was there, though, and he was really the devil of the team. He looked up into the stands and let the cheer and excitement fill him with adrenaline before the chase even began. The balls were released into the air and the whistle blew long and clear. The tiny second-year Ravenclaw seeker immediately shot towards the stands meaning he'd seen the snitch already. This could be a short game. He'd need to score as many points as possible quickly. Not to mention their tactic would need to change if Lorcan was no longer there as a beater.

He rode high into the air and was off.

* * *

When they arrived at the bathroom, a pale boy in Slytherin robes lurked outside of the door. He was leaning against the wall, playing with his wand like muggles played with knives. The stick swung between his fingers.

"Malfoy," Rose sneered. "I'm surprised to see you here."

"Nothing in the match of interest to me," he said, going into the bathroom before the two of them, unafraid of the _Girls_ sign hanging above the door.

"That wasn't what I meant," Rose said, following him in. "What are you doing here, Scorpius?"

He flipped his wand around some more in his hands. "I've been accused of throwing a wild party without inviting Slytherins and turning someone into a finch. Do you know what those two things have in common?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "I'm sorry, Scorpius. Is that what you want to hear? You were an easy target to blame considering, let's face it, you're usually guilty of things like that."

"And you think it's as easy to get rid of me as a backhanded apology? The boys in this school have really spoiled you for your looks."

"Scorpius, get out of here. You're already dueling Albus. Take your revenge then. I've been working on getting this right for months."

"Albus isn't to blame here, surprising as it is, and I hate to see you passing the job onto your cousin like stuck-up girl you are. Can't even fight your own battles."

"I would fight you now if it meant you'd leave my cousin and the rest of us alone, but somehow I think that would be quite impossible for you to do."

"You don't need to break a nail. All I want is to watch."

Rose crossed her arms. "To watch me make my wand? I don't think so."

"Touchy, touchy. Afraid you'll slip up and I'll tell the school about how the great Rose Weasley, daughter of Hermione Granger and Ron Weasley, failed?"

"Why would you want to be here if not to wreck my wand?"

"I'm interested in wand-making," Scorpius said unconvincingly. "I want to be the next Ollivander."

"Oh, that is a load of Hogwash."

"Does it matter?" Carina asked. "He's just baiting you, Rose. If he really did want to destroy your wand, he wouldn't have come here so openly. He just wants to pester you."

"No. I'm not here to pester," Scorpius promised. "You have my word."

"And what good is your word, Scorpius? How did you find out about this anyway? I only told my friends."

"Some friends you got. Leaking your secrets like that."

"They wouldn't have told anyone."

"Sure they wouldn't. You just keep telling yourself that."

"Get out!"

"Let him stay," Carina said. Rose looked over at her, surprised. "I want to see what he does."

* * *

Jeremy dodged his way around the players and was about to go in for a shot when something whacked him hard. He was used to waking up covered in bruises from being battered left and right, it was a feature of Quidditch, but this made his entire body lurch right and propelled him off of his broom. He held fast to the stick and swung around so all that separated him from a speedy descent were five fingers gripping the broom as he hung over the open air. Just as he regained himself from the blow, he saw George Abbot's familiar pixie cut just before she flashed a smile and dove downwards, towards her next victim. George was their new beater? He'd never known her to be a good player, but she sure packed a punch.

* * *

Rose glared at Scorpius from across the way as she set up her instruments. Carina set out the cauldron as Rose positioned a contraption she'd been working on to release all five potions at the same time into the cauldron. Scorpius walked closer and inspected the wooden structure.

"Did you build this?" he asked.

"What's it to you?" Rose sneered.

"Don't be so touchy. It was a compliment."

Rose didn't understand why Carina hadn't helped her fight him. She was some sort of psychic, though. Maybe she knew what Scorpius was really here for. _If so, why didn't she tell me?_ Rose wondered. Carina seemed to enjoy keeping to herself which was irksome to say the least, especially when she didn't seem to mind showing that she knew things she shouldn't.

"Where'd you get the wood for this thing?" Scorpius questioned.

"I bought an art easel."

Scorpius turned his head and squinted his eyes for a bit before nodding without a word.

Rose had already prepared the measurements for all of the ingredients and laid them out in order of placement in little cups all around. Rose could tell from the look on his face that Scorpius wanted nothing better than to knock one over and let the contents spill across the floor so she'd have to find more and rework the measurements. Surprisingly, though, the boy did nothing. He just sat and watched which annoyed her. This was supposed to be her day of triumph—if not complete failure—and he was ruining it just by being there and making her worry about what he was up to.

Rose began chopping ingredients and Carina used her wand to slice the Bladderwrack evenly around his its pouches. It was vital that only one pair of hands touch the ingredients.

"How long is this going to take?" Scorpius asked.

"If you're bored, why don't you scamper off a cliff?"

"Why didn't you do all of this before?"

"This is a high-level potion," Rose told him, pausing in her chopping of the ginger. "The ingredients have to be freshly prepared or they won't work as well." She deposited the ginger into one of the containers as the water began to boil. There was silence as the two of them worked and Scorpius sat on the sidelines, watching. There wasn't much preparation considering most of the work had been completed beforehand. When they had finished and emptied everything into the jars, they all sat, looking at it.

"Is it ready?" Carina asked.

"Only one way to find out."

Rose stood up, reached forward, and yanked away the rope holding everything in place. The jars tipped and the ingredients fell together, into the large cauldron. Instantly, the potion sizzled released a breath of purple vapor that poured over the sides of the pot and settled a lavender veil over the air so the room glowed.

Scorpius stood and looked around and back to her. "That is supposed to happen?"

"The vapor will go through the entire color spectrum. When it turns white, we can start."

"How long will that take?"

"Hard to say," she said, looking about her. "A skilled wandmaker could tell you down to the second, but I don't know my own work. It could be over an hour."

"Terrific."

"Now we wait?" Carina questioned on the ground.

Rose nodded, looking to Scorpius. "Now we wait."

* * *

The Ravenclaws were up in points, but the Gryffindors weren't far behind and had the chance to win if the snitch was caught soon. Things were tough. Jeremy felt as though George was intentionally targeting him. Every time he neared an objective he'd set his eyes on, it was as if she had a direct link to his thoughts and he jolted swiftly to the side, losing his opportunity. He knew to keep a tighter grip on his broomstick, but every time he repositioned himself, she swung her bat. _She is targeting me_ , he thought. _I've scored the most points today._

Leo's voice echoed throughout the stadium. _And look! The golden snitch has been spotted by the Ravenclaw team seeker who speeds after it in hot pursuit! The Gryffindor seeker quickly catches on and is following, but making for it from the opposite end of the stadium!_

Lysander took the split-second of distraction to go for the quaffle and shot it past the keeper, through the hoop.

* * *

"Do you really think this is going to help you with your spells?" Scorpius asked, sitting in the diluted red glow of the cauldron.

Rose looked over at him from her seat. It was hard to see, but the last color was gradually fading. "Well, I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't, now would I?"

"I suppose not, though it seems pointless to me."

"Then why watch at all?"

"It's not the wand that won't work. It'll manage fine. It's you that doesn't work."

"I can do magic just fine, thank you very much. I just need a wand especially for me."

"Mmmm. I'm sure that's it. Yeah."

"If there's something you have to say, spit it out."

"No, no, nothing."

Rose looked away as the spell drifted into a pearl color that settled over the room.

"Alright. It's almost ready," she said.

"Tell me, how does it feel to do a spell or two correctly as opposed to the thousands you've butchered?" Scorpius asked.

Rose glared at him. "Scorpius—."

"No, really. I'm serious. I want to know why you're a master of potions, but you can't even light your wand without something exploding."

"I wouldn't be criticizing—." She stopped. "Did you just call me a master at potions?"

"Master _of_ potions. If you're quoting someone, get it right."

"But you think I'm good at potions."

Scorpius smiled, but not in contempt. "I _know_ you're good at potions. Everyone does. You're better than most adults."

"I don't think—."

"Then you're dim." He looked her straight in the eyes and she could see the light from the windows shine in and reflect off each of his eyes in a vibrant crescent suns. Each dark eye was a solar eclipse. "Rose, you can make NEWT-level potions. You help people older than you with exams. Only a few people on Earth exist who are skilled enough to make wands and you just decided to one day just because you didn't like the one you had. Any other person would've gotten a new one. Do you know what I would give to be that amazing?"

Rose said nothing.

"You know what your problem is."

"My problem?"

"With spells. The reason why you can't do them. You think too much. It's a fatal flaw. With potions, it's about memorization and the intelligence to know just what a potion needs like a healer giving a diagnosis."

"It's like making a soup," Rose told him. "You can have a recipe, but what matters is that it tastes good to you."

"Right," Scorpius said. "You think about charms as being like that, but it just isn't."

"Yes it is. You can put multiple spells together and make a different one."

"But most spells are raw. You need to learn how to eat eggs straight out of the shell instead of making them over easy every time."

Rose smiled and cocked her head. "What?"

"You have to eat an apple instead of a pie. You need the banana before you make it into a split. Do you get it?"

"Um…no."

"Do a wand lighting charm."

Rose took out her wand and said, "Lumos." She shut her eyes "Now, you see, it's too bright." She snuffed it.

"Do it again and don't think about it."

"Don't think about it? You need to think about light for light to come out of the wand. That's how it works. With a Patronus spell you need to think of happy memories. With a Cruciatus curse you need to feel hate and really mean what you're doing, want the other person to suffer."

"But it's not the same with other spells. Those are advanced and rarely used. This is what comes of having a brilliantly advanced witch for a mother. She and probably the rest of your family taught you about advanced magic before the basics. For most people in your situation, it wouldn't have been a problem because they would've failed at advanced spells immediately and gone to simple ones, but you probably just kept trying at the hard ones until you got them and applied the same technique to all the other spells you've ever learned in school. That's why your spells are always too powerful. It's not your wand. You just think too much." As he said the last bit, he waved his wand and it shone a careful glow that lit the fog.

Rose took out her wand. "I don't think about it?"

"Too hard for you?"

"No! Of course not. I'm just not used to it. So I just say 'lumos.'" Her wand lit. "Merlin's beard! You must be joking! That's not possible. You changed my wand."

"And why would I want to make you feel better about yourself? I'm just trying to lessen your stupidity."

"But I've never been able to do it! Merlin, it must've been explained to me a thousand times. Clocks and chickens and such and it never made any sense. Everyone else was so confusing."

"Because it comes to them so easy. I had the same trouble when I was younger, but my father realized what the matter was and corrected it."

"Knox," she said. The light shone brighter.

"Don't think about it," he repeated.

She closed her eyes and cleared her mind, but she couldn't stop thinking about the light going out. She opened them and looked at Scorpius and in that moment when she was focused on him sitting in front of her instead of the spell, she said "Knox" and the light went out.

"Yes!" she shouted. She jumped to her feet and shot a laughing charm at him like it was just a potion being thrown to the ground and he burst into a fit of laughter against the stone. "I can't believe it!"

"Aguamenti!" he shouted between laughs, drenching her in water as he got to his feet.

"Ugh!" she ran after him, shouting spells and he flicked some back at her, their voices echoing off the walls of the bathroom, laughter filling the place. Suddenly she stopped.

Scorpius took a moment to quell his laughter and held his side. "What is it?" he huffed.

"Nothing. It's just. The potion."

"Forget it. You don't need it anymore."

"I know, but..." she walked over to the cauldron. "Where's is it?"

Scorpius surveyed the empty room. "Your friend's got it."

She looked back at him. "Carina? Why would she want my potion? She was the one who wanted me to make it in the first place."

Scorpius sighed. "But don't you see? It was never for you."


	22. A Swing and A Miss

Chapter 22-A Swing and A Miss

I run through the stands as the game is still going on, the jar of potion tucked against my chest, warming my body. I push through the people in the Ravenclaw section. I know how the game will end and I need to get to her before it does. I see her in the stands with her blonde hair flying out around her.

"Frieda!" I shout. She doesn't even look in my direction. "FRIEDA!" I scream. I repeat her name over and over and over again until she pauses and swishes her head around until she spots me. I see her eyes through the crowd of heads. She pushes through the people and smiles at me.

"Pocahontas!" she shouts. "You came! The game's almost over though, I—."

I pull her robes and lead her off to the side where there is at least a bit less noise so we can hear each other. "Frieda, I need a favor."

She knits her eyebrows. "What kind of favor?"

* * *

Leo stood, high above the audience and players, in the announcer's box, his eyes moving quickly on the scene.

"And look!" he shouted. "The golden snitch has been spotted by the Ravenclaw team seeker who speeds after it in hot pursuit! The Gryffindor seeker quickly catches on and is following, but making for it from the opposite end of the stadium!" He loved the way his voice echoed powerfully through the stadium and controlled the screams of the crowd. Most of them couldn't see the chase from where they sat. They leaned over the edges of the viewing stands, trying to get a better look, but the fight for the tiny golden ball was happening on the very outskirts of the field. "The Ravenclaw seeker makes a jump for the snitch…and misses! That's a move she'll need to recover from, but the Gryffindor seeker is still on its tail! The Ravenclaws are still significantly ahead of the Gryffindors in points, though. If they manage to boost their score before the snitch is caught, the game could still go to them."

"Leo, would you stop sounding like you want the Ravenclaws to win?" Patricia huffed beside him, her voice catching into the spell and echoing through the stadium.

"I'm trying remain impartial," Leo said. "As any good announcer should."

Albus grabbed his wand and shouted. "GO GRYFFINDOR!" The message roared through the stadium. The Gryffindor crowd went wild and Leo yanked his wand back.

"Would you two get out of here? This is supposed to be my box. You've invaded it. Leave!"

"No, mate, I must stay! You need me!"Albus shouted as Leo pushed the two out of the room and locked the door behind them. He turned back to the game, cursing to himself when he realized that he'd missed a chunk of the game and then cursing again when he realized that he'd just announced multiple swear words to the entire audience. Well, at least that could be interpreted as his frustration at Gryffindor loosing.

"The Gryffindor seeker appears to be behind once more to the Ravenclaw seeker who was able to quickly take the lead of the snitch a second time. And Gryffindor just scored! And again another Gryffindor…was taken out by a Ravenclaw budger." Again, George was the culprit. He was livid when he saw that she had taken Lorcan's spot. So Lorcan really was off of the team. Merlin, first his mother and now this? He hated that girl, though he couldn't say that he was surprised. She was proud to steal his spot on the team. Something perplexed him, though. He noticed the way she held her bat.

As the players swarmed around the pitch, it looked as if the game wasn't close to finished after all. The seekers were still whipping about at an odd angle, but he didn't see any… Just then he saw it. The snitch flew from under the stands and the seekers were on it instantly. And he saw one other thing that nobody else could see. George. She raised her bat. The crack of a bludger against a wooden bat. A hand closed around the snitch.

"Gryffindor wins," Leo said, slight surprise in his voice. There was no enthusiasm from him, no line of congratulations and praising of the team as there would have been after such a hard fought game. The Gryffindor crowd erupted in cheers and screamed its utter delight at the results. They were rapt. Leo wasn't. Because from his angle, he'd seen what nobody else had.

He pulled himself together.

"Ah…and that rounds off the game. Congratulations to Gryffindor," he concluded lamely. He shut off the announcer spell on his wand and stepped slowly out of the box and stood there for a moment before what had just happened snapped into place in his mind and he bolted. He ran, bumping into countless people on the field celebrating or cursing their loss. Leo pushed and shoved to escape the crowd, but people kept calling his name and joking with him about what he'd said in the announcer's box. He could hardly pay attention to any of it. What had just happened? Why?

"Leo!" Jeremy shouted, waving his arms. He was still in his Quidditch uniform when he ran up to him. "This is great! Are you coming to the party?"

"Um…yeah," Leo said. "Yeah, I'll be there." Suddenly Carina came to his mind. When he'd asked her whether she was going to see the game, she said she'd already seen it and he had to wonder if they'd seen the same thing. "Hey, do you know if Carina's going?"

"Oh…no, she never got back to me."

That was Carina. Vague about everything and almost conditioned to vanish and reappear. He had the feeling they'd meet again before the day was out.

Leo pushed his way towards the changing rooms and almost as soon as he got there, someone nudged him from outside and he fell through the entrance, stumbling as he came in.

"What in the—Leo?!" George said. "What are you doing in here?" She flipped down the collar of her shirt which had popped up. She didn't seem distressed to see him in the girls changing area, especially strange considering they were alone.

Leo looked at her and walked forward. "Good game."

She grinned. "Was that a true compliment? Why, Leo, I'm honored."

"Why did you do it?"

George raised her eyebrows and shook her head. "Why did I…do what? I'm going to need more information."

"You know what I'm talking about. The game. Just now. You threw the game. I know you did."

"Throw the game? Please." She smirked. She turned around to pick up her Quidditch robes on the ground and hang them up. "Why would I want to throw the game?"

"I don't know why you did it since you barely cared before, but you did."

She reached for her heavy winter robes on a hook. "I didn't throw—." Leo stopped her so they both had her robes bundled in their fingers, one hand over the other. He stared down at her.

"I saw you. The announcer's box is higher than everyone else's. I saw exactly what no one else could. You could've easily taken out the Gryffindor seeker and let Ravenclaw win. You were about to. I saw it. But then you hesitated. You paused and let the bludger fly late so it hit the Ravenclaw seeker after the snitch was caught."

She stared back into his eyes, motionless for a moment. "It was an accident."

"You didn't miss a single time this game."

"I missed quite a bit. I'm just good at hitting what I don't mean to."

"Stop lying to me, George! I saw what happened! Why would you do that? Why would you make your own team lose?"

She yanked her robes out of his hand. "Oh, so it's okay for you to demand secrets from me, but I can't ask the same of you?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh, now who's playing dumb?! You knew all about Lorcan and you didn't tell me even when you knew I would've taken his spot on the Quidditch team! Your Gryffindor loyalty is to a fault."

Leo stared at her. "You know about Lorcan's mother?"

She rolled her eyes and ran her fingers through her short brown hair. "I'm not as thick as everyone thinks I am, you know. You'd know that if you bothered to get to know girls before you judged them. You're such a good guy. How did you wind up this way?"

He would've spoken, but he found there was nothing to pull out of his throat. The words were a jolt. He didn't know why. They weren't at all remarkable, but he had no smart comeback. He and Gorge just stood there, staring into one another for a long time. He didn't think of anything. The moment was blank.

Just then, Nathan came in and stopped short when he saw the two of them alone together in the girls' changing rooms. Leo stepped backwards. He didn't realize he'd been standing so close. She pulled on her robes, covering her goose flesh.

"Nathan, did you tell her about Lorcan's mother?" Leo asked, though more inquisitively than accusatory. He felt sleepy all of a sudden. "I can't believe you would do that."

"You would if you'd seen what she gave me." From his pocket, he retrieved a list of runes, but Leo had no clue what they meant. He wasn't in Ancient Runes. "Lorcan's been drawing them all morning. He didn't even care about the game today, Leo. He was so busy drawing these, he forgot all about it. These are the same runes Mrs. Scamander had been drawing when I went to visit her."

Leo looked up at the two of them from the runes on the paper. "So we have to tell a teacher."

"Then Lorcan will go to St. Mungo's too and nothing will be resolved," George told him.

"And you think that it can be resolved? How? How would you possibly…" But he stopped himself. He knew how. "You want to find somebody who can read the runes."

"We just haven't got anybody," Nathan shrugged. "I'm in Ancient Runes, but there are thousands of runes and I only know a few of these ones."

"So, you were just planning on doing…what exactly?"

"Well, we weren't planning on doing anything today, spur the moment," George said. "We need to do some research first. You just so happened to drop in."

As if by magic, and perhaps it was, Carina, Frieda, Albus, Patricia, Rose, Scorpius and even Darius Minesworth and Sloane Copperridge walked into the tent.

"Leo," Carina said, coming forward. "I brought everyone."

Leo's eyes widened as he looked over the group. "Why?"

Carina looked confused for a moment before she slapped her forehead. "We haven't had this conversation!" she said.

"Is this a psychic thing?" he asked.

"I brought everyone so we can resolve the Pearl's impact. These are all of the people affected by it."

"Carina," Frieda called from the entrance. "Where's Jeremy? I thought this was supposed to help you get with him."

Carina shifted her eyes without turning back to face her friend. "Yes, well, I lied, didn't I?"

"Ah! Carina! You're so mean!"

"I'm sorry, but I knew that if I told you the truth, you'd never help me gather everybody and no one would've followed me here."

"You should've been in Slytherin," Scorpius smirked.

"How do you even know this is everyone?" Leo asked. "Half of the school could be affected."

"Leo, trust me. The people in this room are all of the ones who are important."

Leo crossed his arms. "All of them?"

Carina faltered. "What do you mean?"

"Where's Jeremy?"

"Jeremy isn't affected," she responded, a little too quickly.

"Jeremy is my best friend. If anyone's been around the Pearl and effected by it, it's him. I'll run naked through the Great Hall if he's not part of this."

"Has he shown you any signs of being changed by the Pearl?"

"He's interested in you."

Carina paused. She was obviously taken aback by the comment. She scowled. "He's unimportant."

"Oh, yeah? Keep telling yourself that. So typical of girls. Trying to deny things."

"So typical of you to applying everything one female does to the entire gender!"

"Leo, Carina, please," Rose stopped them. "We didn't come here to fight."

"Why did we come here?" Frieda asked.

"Because of what's been happening!" Carina told them. "I've tried to keep track of it all, but it's just gotten too hard as the Pearl's influence spirals outwards. Slowly, more and more people are being affected. For the last week, I've been trying to find out who's been affected by the Pearl and how to get them here in this moment. We need to tell each other everything and just come clean once and for all so we can come closer to resolving this entire issue." She looked back to Leo. "Please, Leo. Are you with me?"

In the months since he'd met Carina, Leo hadn't known her ever to be so open, but perhaps living in a world of secrets became difficult after a while. Perhaps for the first time she just wanted to lay everything on the table. As a journalist, he wasn't sure why he'd ever hesitated. This might've been the smartest thing Carina had ever done.

"I'm with you!" Darius shouted, raising his ax in the air.

"You've certainly changed your tune since we got here," Sloane commented, crossing his arms.

Leo nodded. "I'm with you on one condition. We get Jeremy."

Carina's expression dropped. "Don't drag your friend into this. Only those involved should know."

"He is involved. More so than Nathan or George, anyway. He knows my mother left me, he's noticed strange things happening, and, most convincingly, he remembers your face like the rest of the people here. We get him or I'm leaving along with your precious Living Pearl."

"Oh, goody," Freida chimed. "I'll go get him." And she vanished from the tent.


	23. The Inheritor's Curse

Chapter 23-The Inheritor's Curse

I sit in the circle and try to explain as best I can. It's hard for me to meet Jeremy's eyes. I don't know why, though. I don't fancy him. I don't fancy anyone. I think it's because, out of everyone here, I care what he thinks of me because we were once friends. We used to play in the stream out behind my house and catch tiny fish in buckets. We'd run through the neighboring farm fields and climb trees and build tiny wooden boats from bark and leaves that we'd race until they sunk. I loved those days. But things changed when we went to Hogwarts. Suddenly, we weren't the only two children for miles around and Jeremy just loved it. He loved all of the people. He immediately befriended other socialites in Gryffindor like Leo and Albus, but I wasn't so fortunate. I was never quite so good at making friends and Jeremy was too busy to even look at me anymore. Things might've changed over time, but I was cursed early on. I know that if I was friends with Jeremy, I wouldn't have been cursed. The pond only feeds on vulnerable people, after all, and even one friend would have changed that. I don't blame him, but I can never like him the way Rose and Frieda now seem to think I do. If I ever were to have a significant other, I wouldn't want him to forget me as easily as Jeremy did.

"So, just to recap what's been said," George says. "Leo has a magical artifact inside his naval which is not only manipulating us, but is being hunted by a goblin named Jagobin?"

"We don't know that he's a goblin," I respond, shaking my head. "I can't be sure, but I think he's something else."

"You're the psychic, I guess."

"Carina." Frieda says. "Why did you tell me none of this before?"

"It holds little importance in the grand scheme of things." I neglect to tell her that I trust her as much as I would trust a four-year-old.

"Little importance?" Jeremy says. "Are you joking? You can see the future."

"Sort of. Sometimes. It is not as easy as you make it sound." I refuse to tell them how my curse works. It feels like my guts are being spilled out on the floor by those I would usually consider my prey. If I can keep just one part of me alive, it's how my curse works and if all else fails, I at least have that to fall back on.

"It's still better than what any of us can do."

"Don't underestimate your own positions in all of this. You're here because you each have been affected by the Living Pearl, meaning you can help us."

"But how does any of what we're doing have to do with your situation?" Scorpius asks.

"There's too many strange things going on at once for it all not to be connected," George says. "Lorcan has been drawing the same runes as his sick mother. Supposedly, she was hit with a blast from a magical creature, yet suddenly Lorcan's gone crazy just like her. I'm willing to bet anything that this Jagobin character has everything to do with this."

"But Lorcan's never even heard of Jagobin," Leo says. "At least none of us told him."

"Maybe he found out some other way or maybe the spell transfers through blood."

"It's an Inheritor's Curse," Rose whispers.

"Sorry?" George asks.

"An Inheritor's curse," she repeats. "In a will, you can inherit something when a family member dies. Well, a lot of my family works in the ministry. I know the Unspeakables have something called an Inheritor's Curse. When information is so dangerous or complex that only a single person knows it, they place an Inheritor's Curse on that Unspeakable who knows it. It means that if or when that person who holds information dies, it automatically gets transferred to another body so it won't be forgotten. In Lorcan's case, his mother is dying and she obviously made him the inheritor."

"She wouldn't put Lorcan in that sort of danger," Leo insists. "He's her favorite. She loves him more than her husband and Lysander."

"Can the curse be forced on someone?" I ask.

"I really don't know. It's never done in the Ministry." Rose tells me.

"If it can, it would make sense that if she wasn't able to pick her own inheritor, he who cast the spell would pick it for her or —."

"Or it would go to her own bloodline!" Rose exclaims.

"And Lorcan was born before Lysander," Nathan adds.

"It's just a theory," I tell them. "Treat it as such."

"But it's a good one," George admits. "Still, we need to figure out what the symbols mean.

"If no one here knows, we could go to the ancient runes professor," Nathan suggests.

"And tell him what?" George says. "What if he knows _exactly_ what the symbols are? Do you really think that would be a completely good thing? He could send Lorcan to St. Mungo's and tell all of the staff, forcing all of our secrets out. Everything here might get ripped wide open, including Carina's secret."

"I think we should go to the hospital to see Mrs. Scamander," Jeremy interrupts.

"And what, exactly, will that accomplish?" George asks. "She's in the same state as Lorcan. We might as well just go to him to get information. We'll discover the same amount."

"Not to get information," he says. "If Lorcan is an inheritor as you suggest and things are only inherited when one person dies, Mrs. Scamander is extremely close to death or is dead already. Don't you think we should take Lorcan and Lysander to her?"

I look around at the silent party and wonder why Jeremy was the first one of us to suggest as much. Of anyone, I thought it would be Nathan, but even he was too caught up in the excitement to realize what all of this might mean for Lorcan. I stand.

"Jeremy is right. We should take Lorcan and Lysander to St. Mungo's. I know how to get out of here without detection. After all, I've done it dozens of times before."

"I'll come," Jeremy immediately volunteers.

"So will I," Nathan says.

"Well, if he's going, so am I," George says. The entire group save the dwarves all chime in that if one of us is leaving, we all are.

"No," I tell them. "Leo cannot leave. He has the Pearl and Jagobin is still after him. The second he leaves school grounds, he's no longer safe."

"Well, they know you're associated with the Pearl and we've seen Jagobin's men. They're not wizards," Leo tells me, "therefore, they might be able to remember and pay attention to you. You could be in just as much danger."

I shake my head. "As long as you keep the Pearl inside of you, they have no idea that we know how to remove it and won't try to use leverage to make you hand it over because they'll still think you don't know how. As far as they're concerned, the only way to get the Pearl is to kill you."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Leo stops me. "We know how to remove the Pearl?"

"That's why I'm leaving Scorpius and Rose with you as well," I say. "If all else fails, he knows how to remove the Pearl."

"Why am I staying?" Rose asks. "I don't know how to remove it."

Scorpius nods knowingly. "You're the insurance. Nobody here trusts me, but everyone trusts you. You're the daughter of virtual nobility in a house of loyalty and bravery who's friends with everyone here. If anyone's staying with me, it's you."

"Jeremy, Nathan, Lorcan, and Lysander can come," I say, "but the rest of you should stay at Hogwarts. Mrs. Scamander is dying and we need to remain undetected. This is hardly something to bring a lot of people to."

"Great. So the rest of us just sit and brew here?" George grumbles.

"Brewing is the only way any potion ever came to completion," I tell her. "Being together can hardly constitute as being idle as you suggest. Make wise use of this time."

I walk from the tent without another word and, unsurprisingly, Leo follows immediately after. He runs to me before Jeremy and Nathan have the chance and stops in front of me. We are momentarily alone outside.

"I know that this isn't important, what with all that's going on, but…" he looks over my shoulder at Nathan and Jeremy outside the tent, arguing with the others. He lowers his voice. "George threw the Quidditch game. Did you know that?"

"Sort of," I tell him truthfully. We've had this conversation before.

"She wanted Lorcan's spot on the team and now they'll never give it to her," Leo tells me. "Why do that? What's her game?"

"Her only game is Quidditch," I say with a smile, at risk of sounding cheesy. "She sabotaged the game because she's equally as noble as you are, Leo. She only wants that spot on the team if it's won fairly against Lorcan, when he's in his full senses."

"But before she made it seem like—."

"George just wants to be part of something," I tell him. "And she's a Ravenclaw. She's cunning and knows that she can lie and play with your emotions to get what she wants. In the end, look where it led her. She's in the middle of it all just like she wanted. Whatever she said, I doubt she meant it. She was using it to elicit a response."

"And it almost worked," Leo admitted. "I almost told her about Lorcan's mother yesterday."

"I don't think she's who you think she is," I say. "Rarely anyone ever is."

And I walk past my friend, leaving him to sit on that thought as I walk towards the school, power flowing through my legs as I march up the hill. I soon hear Nathan and Jeremy coming up behind me.

"So what do we do now?" Jeremy asks from beside me as they both follow.

"We find the two boys," I say. "Nathan, you're on the same team as Lysander. Would you know where he is?"

"Probably sulking about losing the game with the rest of the team in the astronomy tower. That's our usual place."

"Fetch him without dragging the entire Quidditch team along, if you can," I say. "Meet us outside the Headmaster's office."

"The Headmaster's office? Why?"

"Just trust me," I command. "Jeremy, we're going to the Ravenclaw dorms to get Lorcan."

"You don't know where they are. Only Ravenclaws do," Nathan says.

"I hate to be the one to break this to you," Jeremy says, "but that's never been true."

The two of us run into Hogwarts and easily bypass the question word to the Ravenclaw dorms. The common room has plenty of people, but no one notices us, perhaps because my virtual invisibility can rub off on those I'm near. When we get to the room, it's covered in runes. Top to bottom, the place is a mess of ink and parchment.

"It's all the same runes," Jeremy tells me. "At least he's consistent. Most of the pages say the same thing."

"Are you sure?" I ask.

"I can read some of them and I recognize others. There's a visible pattern, but it's very complex and for a spell I'm not familiar with. I can't imagine trying to decode any of this."

I look around as Lorcan scrawls out things on the ground. I rush to him and kneel beside him. "Give me your quill," I say. "I need it." He keeps writing. "Where are your other quills? I need to send a letter." He keeps writing. "Lorcan, can you hear me?! Wake up!"

Jeremy kneels down beside Lorcan and carefully rubs his back. "Lorcan," he says softly, "You don't have to keep writing. Give me the quill." He moves his hand to Lorcan's and stops his writing. He tries to remove the quill, but Locan clutches it.

I rise and turn over the room looking for a quill, a fresh page, and ink as Jeremy talks slowly to Lorcan.

"Lorcan, your mother is dying. Do you understand me? She's dying in St. Mungo's right now and you need to go to her. Please, Lorcan."

I scrawl out a note as legibly as possible fold it into a neat letter. I pick up a group of pages scattered on the floor and roll them, then tie the entire ensemble together.

"Lorcan," Jeremy says. "Will you get up and go with us?"

I thrust my arm out the window and Jeremy watches a brown-spotted owl lands on my arm. I attach my bundle of papers to Lovey's leg.

"Take this to Leo's father," I tell her. "Please, make haste." And I send her off. I stare out the window as she soars high into the air until she is far out of sight within seconds. I turn back to Jeremy who stands, looking me over.

"She just came to you because you wanted her near?" he asked.

"She follows me," I said. "She knew this day was coming as well as I did."

"And you're on speaking terms with Leo's father?"

"In a sense, I am, and I think he may be just the person to help us. If I am wrong, I claim full responsibility."

He stares and smiles at me, but what he doesn't know is I am equally impressed. Lorcan is standing beside him, ready to leave as if by magic. How Jeremy used his words to reach the boy, I know not, for I am ill-equipped in the art of conversation and affection. To me, such occupations are as wild as I imagine people think of my standing on the roof each morning.

"We should go," I say. "Can we get Lorcan out?"

"I'll come," Lorcan tells us. "I want to get to my mum."

"C'mon." We both grab one of his arms and run unsuspected through the crowded Ravenclaw common room. We go as fast as we can, stopping occasionally to keep Lorcan on task and push him along to remind him of where we're going. He is like an old man with dementia who keeps forgetting and is curious about everything. By the time we make it to the headmaster's office, Nathan and Lysander are already there. Lysander stands stoic and doesn't say a word.

"How do we get out?" he asks me. At first, I am surprised Lysander can even focus on me, let alone speak to me.

I shift myself out from under Lorcan's arm and walk up to the giant stone gargoyle that towers over us all. I pray that the password hasn't been changed since I last spied on the headmaster.

"Three Sisters," I say clearly. The statue groans and creaks and shifts to reveal the staircase. I smile at their looks. "He's a fan of that band. Now, c'mon."

I sprint up the stairs and take a handful of floo from the cup on his desk.

"Wait a minute," Nathan says. "How did you know he wouldn't be in?"

"He never is this time of day," I tell them, pouring some floo in each of their hands. "In fact, he's rarely ever in his office. He keeps it for traditional reasons and to meet important people, but he likes to work in humbler settlings, so he goes to an abandoned classroom."

"Are all Hufflepuffs loaners?" Lysander asks, looking me over and I instantly know he's not just referring to the headmaster and some other Hufflepuffs he's met. He's talking about me. But that defies logic. He shouldn't know me, but I play this down and smile.

"Only the best ones," I say. I step beneath the hearth and hold out my hand. "St. Mungo's!" I shout and throw down the green powder so I am eaten alive by emerald flames.


	24. Runes and Revelations

Chapter 24-Runes and Revelations

The instant I arrive in the waiting room at St. Mungo's, I jump from the fireplace and turn to see Lorcan appear. Nathan, Lysander, and Jeremy follow and we're instantly running. From here, Lysander takes the lead. I don't know where his mother is, but he does. He and Lorcan have been visiting her this year. We ride several floors up in the elevator and get out at a wing in which screaming immediately fills our ears, yet I know it isn't Mrs. Scamander. This is shrill and hysterical. I've always imagined her voice like a bird's gentle coo. Lorcan has a bit of that. We walk down the way and see blank faces in loose clothing. They don't look at anything and live their lives devoid of reality. Strangely enough, this place doesn't bother me. It almost seems strange to me that I haven't come to visit this place just to pass the time on a long summer's day.

A nurse comes down the hall and stops when she sees us, perhaps to say that visiting hours are over, but I grab her eyes with mine own and she stops, thoughtless, before walking away down an adjacent hallway. Jeremy and Nathan have seen it all and stare at me.

"I've been near the Pearl so long," I say. "It's made me more powerful. I know it."

We start to continue walking, but Nathan stops us.

"Let them go," he says.

So we watch the Scamander twins turn into a room and wait.

"It isn't fair," Jeremy says, "that Lorcan should be like this when he sees his mother for the last time. I'll kill whoever did this."

"Just something a Gryffindor would say," Nathan says,

"Something a Hufflepuff would say too," I tell him. I look at the door the twins have vanished through, but I feel Jeremy's eyes on me.

Presently, Nathan steps forward until he slowly reaches the door and I follow him. The room is small and white and Luna Scamander lay in bed with her hair long and flowing out about her head. Lysander cradles her hand in his and speaks low and softly to her, but she is far away, mumbling strange words, some of which I do recognize, but most are strange like some blend of English, German, and Italian.

"Must be the words that accompany the runes," Nathan says.

"What?" I ask.

"What she's saying."

"If that's true, shouldn't whatever the spell is break?"

Nathan smirks. "You really never paid attention in school, did you?"

"I never had ancient runes." I hear it is such a terrible bore.

"Runes don't work by saying their meaning like spells do. You have to write them on whatever's being enchanted or, in this case, whatever's already been enchanted. You can say the words and write the symbols as many times as you want. Without the thing or person, it's pointless."

"Or person," I repeat.

"Or person," he verifies, looking at me. "What is it?"

I back up and breathe because now it all seems so clear that I could just smack myself for not seeing it before. I could drown myself in the pathetically shallow puddle of stupidity I have shown. I should have known it the moment Rose told me.

"It's Lovey," I whisper. I bump the wall behind me I turn back to look at it like I am surprised I didn't fall straight through it.

"Lovey?" Nathan asks. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh, God, it's Lovey, it's Lovey!" I tell them. I look around. I need to call to her somehow. I need the sun high above me so I can will her to me, but its rays are far from the dull inner walls of St. Mungo's. I run through the room and shove the curtains to the side to see the sun still high against the dull winter sky. I push and yank at the window relentlessly, but the cold frame won't open and I am too rushed and frantic to think of my wand. A hand touches my elbow and I stop to look at Jeremy behind me. He pulls at a latch at the edge of the window and slides it open for me. The small gesture calms me enough to remind me that I can't be this way. I grip the pane of the window and stare out at the pastel colors smeared into the clouds above the buildings and the wind picks my hair up behind me. I feel those few rays of sun seep into my skin and down deeper into my bones until I can feel the wind beneath every part of me and I am like a bird standing on both feet in that hospital wing.

"Please, I need to see Luna Scamander immediately!" It's a voice outside, in the hallway. I've never heard it a day in my life, but I know who it is.

"That's Leo's father," Jeremy says. He rushes out to the hallway and talks to the nurse for a time, but she won't let him in. They get into an argument. Finally, she concedes and plans to return later to check on everything. She won't. Not with me here. She'll forget this room even exists as long as I'm in it.

I turn around when they walk into the room. I'm not quite sure what I was expecting. He is skinny and a bit hunched, in his forties and is already mostly bald. Glasses reflect circles of light in front of his eyes so I can't see their color or if he recognizes me. The eyes don't really matter, though. He looks nothing like Leo.

On his shoulder is Lovey and I assume that is the main reason that the nurse was arguing with them.

"Lovey's the one the runes belong to," I say to Mr. Wespurt. It was meant to be a question, but it doesn't come out as such. Perhaps because I already know that I am right.

Mr. Wespurt nods and sets Lovey on the ground. He takes a piece of chalk from his pocket and slips it into Lorcan's hand. "Can you write?"

Lorcan instantly sketches out the runes along the floor and Lovey hops about his fingers like it's a game. He writes as if she's nonexistent, yet the runes form a circle about her. Now I understand why the runes he was writing before on parchment were slanted. Lorcan places his hands on the runes and recites the words in time with his mother's voice, his eyes moving along them as if he's reading them. Maybe he is. His eyes begin to shift and waver from brown to a startling emerald. The runes steadily begin to glow and shine. Lorcan and Mrs. Scamander's eyes widen as the light grows in intensity. Soon, Mr. Wespurt and Jeremy both shut their eyes, but I keep mine open to watch.

"Are you crazy Carina?" Jeremy shouts, grabbing my wrist and yanking me away as the light flashes in a wave past us and through the room. He buries my head in his chest so I see nothing as I feel a splash of air hit my back.

I pull away from him and am about to tell him off for grabbing me when I notice he is looking over my head with wide eyes. I turn around, though I know what I will see. A woman stands on the hospital floor, runes fading beneath her bare feet before they vanish completely. Unlike Rose when she turned into a bird, she appears clothed. She is young with blonde hair that waves back and forth on the way down her back.

"Myra," Mr. Wespurt breathes and the two of them rush to embrace.

"She looks different than I imagined," I say. She has a leather halo tightened down around her forehead and wears a plain brown dress that is loose and wide about her and flows gracefully with her movements. Earrings dance at her neck. She isn't wearing robes and she carries no wand. That is when I realize. She's a muggle.

"Leo's mum was Lovey," Jeremy says just to affirm that what he sees before his eyes is indeed true. Aside from her hair, she looks just like Leo, or should I say Leo looks just like her. They've the same rigid face and pale complexion. They were carved from the same stone.

"Why else do you think she was so fond of me?" I smile.

He looks at me disbelievingly. "You mean you knew?"

I shake my head. "Just today. Rose told me. When she was a finch, Mrs. Wespurt told her everything that happened. She just didn't know about the runes, that they could change her back."

"What did happen?"

Leo's mother cuts from her oscillation to look around at us.

"Luna," she says, walking over to Mrs. Scamander. The woman breathes heavily in her bed, sweat dripping off of her ears from her forehead. Lorcan walks over to the bed and sits beside Lysander.

"She'll be alright," Leo's father tells us.

"How do you know?" Lysander asks.

"Once the spell is done, it can do no more harm to the person who's under it. Certainly, it will take her time to recover, but soon it will be no more than a fever."

"But that's not possible," Jeremy says, still staring at the spot in which the runes had once been. "You left Leo and your husband."

Myra Wespurt knits her eyebrows. "Left? I left temporarily to live at Hogwarts. Because I was an owl and I needed to watch over my son. If anything happened to him or the Pearl, I was to report it immediately."

"And you didn't think to tell Leo that you were doing this?"

"We couldn't," Mr. Wespurt says.

"He's an Unspeakable," I realize. "That's why you couldn't tell Leo about his mother. She's involved somehow with the Living Pearl and you're sworn to not repeat information about it."

He nodded. "You see, that's why I didn't respond to your letters. I've been jumping around quite a bit lately, really all over the world tracking down Jagobin and his followers." All over the world. It was funny. I always imagined Leo's father at home. That seems like a strange thought now that I think about it, but he never seemed like someone to be so actively involved, especially now that I look at him, so small and strange-looking. He is shorter than his wife, not by much, but it's still noticeable.

"That doesn't excuse that you told him she left your family!" Jeremy shouts.

Mr. and Mrs. Wespurt exchange glances.

"I told Leo that his mother was gone on a vacation for a time," Mr. Wespurt says. "We both travel occasionally for work, but I knew I couldn't tell Leo it was because of her job. He knows many of her work friends and if he was to ask where she was, he would know I was lying, so I purposely kept it vague. I said she was staying with some family and sight-seeing."

"That isn't what Leo said," Jeremy tells them. "He seems to have the impression she left for good."

"Oh no," Myra sighs, running her fingers down her scalp so I could see dark lines of hair under her blonde locks. She looks up at her husband. "This is our fault. We'd been fighting relentlessly when Leo came home from Hogwarts over the summer. He must've thought it had been going on all year."

Leo's father looked back at us. "The Department of Mysteries has always housed the Pearl, ever since Baxg's death. He had given it to a wizard who housed him for many years, but the wizard happened to pass away with no benefactors so his property was inherited by the Ministry of Magic. When we discovered we had the Living Pearl, it was clearly a delicate situation for those in charge didn't want to hand it over to the goblins as they would have wanted, yet we couldn't let anyone know that we had it in our possession. The Unspeakables were given the information to protect in case the Pearl was ever needed."

"But someone betrayed the Ministry to the black market and won a fortune," Myra continues. "Once Jagobin discovered the Pearl's location, we knew it wouldn't be safe in the Department of Mysteries."

"Understand, at the time, we didn't know who had betrayed us, but we did know that he would swipe the Pearl for himself once he learned its specific location within the department which only I knew. I want to take the Pearl somewhere to keep it safe, but I would lose my job if I stole the Pearl from the Department and we weren't permitted to move it."

"I couldn't let such a powerful object just sit there, so I stole it."

"Which wasn't necessary. We had placed traps around the Pearl to protect it."

"The very traps you set would have been shut down by any Unspeakable! It wasn't safe in the Department of Mysteries anymore. I needed to take it."

"We would have caught him."

"Not before the Pearl went missing."

"I understand your reasoning," I say, interrupting the two before their argument becomes too heated. "What happened then?"

"I ran," Myra tells us. "I took the Living Pearl and fled from the country, going as far as I could, but I quickly learned that hardly anywhere is safe from goblins. They found me in every place I went. Finally, I went to Luna to try and get help, but they had tracked where my flight was headed and met me there. Then, I was turned into a bird and had no choice but to turn back and go home. I had no idea what became of Luna. It all happened so fast."

"But they didn't get the Pearl?" Jeremy asked.

Myra smiles. "I didn't have it. I passed it off to my husband before I left the country. Jagobin is able to track magical objects. He just assumed the one I was carrying was the Living Pearl. In reality, it was a prophesy record I had swiped before I left."

"Leo was going to Hogwarts just the following day and I was desperate to find a hiding space for the Pearl," Mr. Wespurt says. "What better way to hide something than on someone who has no idea they've got it? I knew it would be safe on Hogwarts grounds and by the time Leo returned home for Christmas, I would have discovered where to store it. In the meantime, I had my wife watching over the Living Pearl and Leo."

"And you were also watching over Leo," Myra says, looking me over as she adjusts to the returned smaller blue eyes set into her head instead of the wide disks that sat in a sea of feathers. "If it weren't for you, he would be dead. You're a psychic who truly uses her powers nobly."

I'm not sure how to receive this praise. Usually, it's only through looks, not direct comments.

"But then why would they place an inheritor's curse on Mrs. Scamander?" I ask. "Why not just keep the information about how to free you from being an owl to yourself?"

Jeremy says, "Better question is why they bothered turning you into an owl at all and with such a complex spell. They could have easily transfigured you into a chair and left you there. In fact, they could have just killed you and been done with it. I doubt the magical authorities would have stressed over a muggle."

She exchanges glances with her husband and looks down. "Well, I can't say I know much about magic, so I'm not sure why they did what they did."

"Liar," I say, clearly and distinctly so she and her husband look up at me.

"Excuse me?" she responds, trying to sound authoritative so I'll back down. She fails.

"You know exactly what happened." I don't know how, but I know this is true.

"She's—." Jeremy stops at her glare and looks at me for reassurance. "Carina's right. You're keeping something to yourself."

"One way or the other, it doesn't matter," she says.

"Wrong," Jeremy says. "How can you not see it? Everything matters now. We need to know what you're hiding."

"It doesn't pertain to what's happening here," Mr. Wespurt says firmly.

"And if it does?" Jeremy asks.

"It is a personal matter," he affirms.

"So is all of this," he says. "You better run through your life with a fine-tooth comb because you two seem to be the ones whose lives are wrapped up by the Pearl more than anyone else and your son's well-being depends on you being completely truthful with us, so if you're sure that this has absolutely no effect on what's happening, you can keep your mouths shut, but otherwise SPIT IT OUT!"

"Please trust us on this," Myra tells us. "It isn't our secret to tell."

Jeremy walks out and down the hallway in frustration. I look one last time at Lorcan, Lysander, Nathan, and Mr. and Mrs. Wespurt by Luna Scamander's bed and ran to catch up with him in the hallway, strung with sterile white lights and lined in blue tile. I walked beside him.

"I know you're angry with Leo's parents. So am I," I tell him.

"Really? Did you have to watch Leo all this time thinking his mother had just cut out on him? Look at her, I almost wish she had."

I have to take a moment to process what he's said and realize he means her muggle robes. I've never taken Jeremy to be a purist, but I suppose he isn't really. He's just using it as a superficial way to blame her for what she's done.

"I know that what they did was horrible, but I don't think we should press them on this."

"It's obviously important!"

"I didn't say that it wasn't, but I don't think it's relevant in this moment. Trust me, Jeremy, the truth has a way of coming out."

"Yeah, after years of being hidden."

"Not when it comes to the Living Pearl. I tried for weeks to shake Leo from discovering me only to find that I couldn't. In the end, I had to come clean and tell him who and what I was. I had to tell him everything no matter how much it felt like I was laying my entrails out in front of him to dissect. The Living Pearl made that happen."

He slows his pace and looks over at me. "So Leo found you out because of the Living Pearl's ability to enhance natural capabilities?"

"He and Frieda are the only wizards who had ever remembered me before the Living Pearl began effecting the school and warping my curse. But you know that."

"Did you ever talk with anyone while you weren't remembered?"

"Of course. Constantly, especially with Rose and other Hufflepuffs. But not with you if that's what you're asking. Not even now that we sit next to one another." I neglect to mention that it was out of distaste.

He smiles. "I'm glad. I remember myself my first few years of Hogwarts and I don't think you would have liked him."

"The same goes for me, I'm afraid. Your younger years should never be used against you."

"Agreed. I'm glad we met when we were older." I pause, but say nothing, yet I am too late to hide and he stops and turns to me. "I knew it," he says, grinning. "We were kids! I wasn't crazy."

He waits and I have to smile. "You're not crazy."

"Merlin's beard, Carina!" he says. "My mother talks about you all of the time! 'Where's that old mate you used to have?' she says. And then I have no idea and neither of us think on it for long. Alone in the country with you all my childhood, I feel ashamed to have forgotten under that wretched curse."

I walk in silence as he talks, thinking about how things really ended between us. Should I tell him? Should I tell him that he forgot about me long before the curse? He was my first and only friend for so long. Part of me always thought the only reason he ever played with me as a child was because I was the only other child for miles, but now…He just likes me for who I am and nothing more. Could we be friends again? I feel a small seed of hope within me begin to germinate so one day it might grow over my heart and leaf like ivy. I have Leo and Rose and maybe even Scorpius now to be my friends. Before I never cared, but more and more I don't want to lose them. I want to hang on to this good feeling that's stretching inside of me, down my limbs, and loosening up its joints to walk in my body.

For a long while, we walk through the hospital hallways and just talk about this and that. I ask him if he noticed George in the Quidditch game and he tells me about the bludger blows she gave him and how he wished she was on the Gryffindor team. He eventually coaxes me to tell him that George threw the game. Though he is visibly disappointed, I say I'm still very impressed. The victory would have gone to them without her. He doesn't seem to care much, though he says to keep this between us. He wants also to get back in time for the party for it is bound to start soon. I promise to go with him for a spell.

After a time, we make it full-circle back to Luna Scamander's room and walk back inside, but something's wrong. When we walk in, Lysander and Mr. Wespurt both have their wands out. Lorcan and Luna are still incapacitated and Myra sits on the sidelines, powerless against a group of seven goblins. The one standing in the center of the crowd is visibly larger and more relaxed than the others. We freeze. There are too many for us to fight, especially with my less-than-average magical abilities.

"Step inside and don't make a sound," he says maliciously. The tang of his voice turns my back to gooseflesh and I wonder what things he's done to accomplish such a timbre. When we walk in, the door slams behind us.

"Jagobin tracked the runes that were used to free me," Myra tells us in low voice as the goblins turn on us. We're all stationed on one side of the room and it's only my guess what they intend on doing from here. My day has been empty from the end of the game and on for there is where my vision ended and all the rest of this is a mystery.

"I expected you to all get together eventually," he says, "but I'll admit I thought there'd be more of you."

"Well, Leo and Living Pearl aren't here," I say. "They're safe and sound back at Hogwarts."

"She's right," Mr. Wespurt confirms. "And if you so much as touch any one of us with magic, I'll contact the magical authorities faster than you can flick your finger." I sigh internally. I've never heard a more obvious lie.

Jagobin grins a wild, toothy grin and I suddenly start to lose confidence in everything we've just said. Leo hasn't followed us, has he? He wanted to come, but he wouldn't. He's not adventurous. He's smart. He wouldn't come unless someone goaded him and I left him with people who wouldn't let that happen.

Jagobin paces a few steps, looking at the ground beneath his feet. "What makes you think I'm here for the Living Pearl?" And he looks up, directly at me.


	25. The Orphan Snitch

Chapter 25-The Orphan Snitch

Jeremy froze and swiped his head to Carina who herself didn't make a sound. Her irises flashed between roaming through the tiny white spaces they were given on her eyes and swishing up and down the exterior of Jagobin. In the moment of his surprise, Jeremy had let his guard down and one of the goblins slashed through the air with an electrifying burst of magic. It hit him square in the chest and he flew back through the air, slamming into the wall behind him and hearing the crinkle of white wall paper as he slid to the floor. His head banged for a few brief moments before he regained himself and realized what had happened. He jumped back to his feet and felt a strange, slow feeling, like his joints had turned to taffy and his blood was running in thick syrup as if he was a tree.

Someone screamed. He forced his eyes to stay open and saw Mr. Wespurt slash curse after curse through the air as if they were nothing but stones in his hands. Five curses were already coloring the room from his wand in the three strides it took Myra Wespurt to reach the door and bolt out of the room.

He raised his wand to help. He had to help; Mr. Wespurt was so overwhelmed. He couldn't, though. He felt like he often did when he was left in the heat on hot summer days. Everything inside of him was running slower and he just wanted to lie in the cool grass.

Something exploded to his right and Lysander hit the ground, holding his shoulder as blood ran into his green Ravenclaw Quidditch robes and formed a dark splotch that grew larger by the second, green and red like Christmas. Lysander breathed and whined uncontrollably, even with all of his trips to the hospital wing, he'd never seen that much blood, had he?

Jeremy dropped to his knees to help him. He gathered as much energy as he could to mutter a spell to slow the bleeding at Lysander's arm, though he didn't know how to stop it.

Lorcan was still sitting on the hospital bed, confused and out of the world they lived in. Luna laid in bed, but he saw for the first time that Carina had positioned herself defensively on top of the woman to protect her. Why didn't she cast a shield charm? Why wasn't she fighting?

 _Maybe she knows something we don't,_ he thought. She was a psychic. Did she see this coming? No. She was just as surprised as he was when Jagobin said he didn't want the Living Pearl.

Nathan ran into the doorway, presumably after hearing the noise, and didn't even have time to take in the situation. A goblin stationed there attacked and he dropped to the ground in dead weight.

Finally, Leo's father went down. He was tied with enchanted ropes that squeezed tighter the more he struggled.

Jeremy watched as Carina got down from the bed and stood to look at the largest goblin. She was taller than him for sure, but he was a thousand times more menacing. He watched as Jagobin walked up to her and she stood patiently. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. Why didn't she fight back? _Fight back!_ But she did nothing but submit as the goblins grabbed her arms and led her out the door. She looked over her shoulder at him before they disappeared out of the hospital room door.

It wasn't long after that healers came. One woman sealed Lysander's wound and made him down a potion while a man removed the enchanted ropes from Mr. Wespurt. One of the healers shouted a revitalizing spell and Nathan came back to life, though still a bit strange from the goblin stunning curse.

The woman taking care of Jeremy took his face in her hand and looked into his eyes. She squished his cheeks and commanded he move.

"I can't move. I'm too tired," he said pathetically. "Let me sleep."

He laid on the ground and closed his eyes before someone kicked him hard in the side. Every time he tried to go to sleep, he kept kicking him. He hated it. _Go away!_

"You're pathetic!" Lysander shouted. "Don't you realize they just took your girlfriend?"

"She's working with them," he said, resigned. "Why else would she not fight them? She just went with them."

Lysander nearly laughed. "Fight them? Did you get a look at what happened to the rest of us? The skill those goblins had? They had us outnumbered, Jeremy. What could she honestly have done? She's a Hufflepuff. They're not famously known for their dueling skills. She left so we wouldn't be chopped to pieces."

"Honey, you have to move," the healer woman told him. "The only way to make the spell loosen is to exercise and get your heart pumping faster. Otherwise, it could take days for what they hit you with to wear off."

"Jeremy!" he shouted. Lysander grabbed Jeremy's Quidditch robes and hauled him to his knees. "If you don't get up and go after them, we may never be able to! Do you get that?! I don't know two things about that girl; I doubt the Wespurts even remember her at this point, but I'm going after her, even if you're not."

"Brilliant," he said. "Best of luck."

"Ugh!" Lysander dropped him to the ground and got to his feet. "Useless! He's out. Not that it matters. We have no idea where the goblins are anyway."

"Oh, but we do."

The entire group, healers and all, looked over to Luna Scamander getting up from bed. Her hair was a wet, matted mess from the half-year she'd spent in her state. Jeremy could clearly see the light blonde hair at her back gradually turn white as it neared her scalp. The whites of her eyes were glazed in crimson and in her white gown and pale skin; she looked like some unhuman ghost of a woman, walking the Earth again after so long away.

Luna Scamander stood up as straight as she could and looked around the room.

"I know exactly where Jagobin's hiding."

* * *

While we are in the hall of St. Mungo's, they shove a bag over my head and tie a rope around my neck so it stays on. Then, I am transported to one place then another until I lie on my side, I know not where. The rope about my neck is extended down to bind my hands and feet so that I can't move a single appendage without affecting every other one. I'm bent on the floor in a crescent shape, my spine curving backwards awkwardly. I hate it, but I haven't fought a moment of any of this. In fact, it's getting rather late and I think I might go to sleep soon. The sun is descending towards the horizon.

I know Jagobin is dangerous, but the instant I met him, I felt as if we'd all overestimated him. He is a terrifying being, larger than most goblins and his face is contorted from genes and scars, but I was more afraid of him when I didn't know what to expect, when I'd never seen him, when I didn't know how he would strike, when I didn't know why he wanted the Living Pearl. Now, it is obvious. He doesn't intend to use it on himself. He knows that would harm him just as it has Leo, with his sudden violent misogyny and paranoia, and Baxg, with his extreme pride.

The bag is whipped off of my head and my bindings are cut. They don't think I am dangerous though I doubt that has anything to do with my self-restraint when it comes to fighting back. I would have if I'd wanted to get away, but in truth, the attack was providential. I wanted to be caught. I needed to know more about he who was threatening my friends and me. And I found him. Or he found me. It all depends on who's telling the story. In any case, I am a young witch, never the type of person to be regarded as especially dangerous and I suspect this is why I'm allowed to move freely where they've taken me. I'm easy to control.

I look around and see a dank, grey room built of concrete. Light streams through tiny windows at the top of the walls in the giant area. The plain but tall structure reminds me of a Church. I walk to the corner and run my fingers through gossamer rags that come apart in my fingers. The webs extend all along the walls, so I somehow doubt they use this room often. In fact, in the dust, I can see the footprints of the goblins that have come through here just today and other human prints of different sizes alone in strange places throughout the room, covered in a thinner dust layer. It tells me this is where they usually keep their prisoners. Whoever they were weren't very interested in tidying up or at least weren't in here long enough to. Then again, they could be like me. I should leave clues for the next person trapped in this space. Even if I can't help him to escape, I can give him something. I walk to an open space and lie down on my back. Then, I wave my arms and legs back and forth on the ground, sit up, and write _Honeycomb_ in the spot where my back arches up and didn't relieve the ground of its dust.

"What are you doing?" His voice makes me shiver uncontrollably and I instantly jump to my feet. I don't know why. I can't help myself. I'm not afraid of him. I keep telling myself I am not and I don't feel afraid, then why I am I acting so?

"Making a dust angel," I say. My voice waves and is high. I sound like a little girl. I suppose I am a little girl. I'm only sixteen, after all. I just sound smaller than I expected to in the massive structure around me. Perhaps my voice just sounds small and weak beside the likes of his.

"Imbecile," he mutters. "What a retarded thing to do." He throws around some curses under his breath and hunches his back. Why, I can't say. He seemed to have very good posture when he first walked in. The entire thing seems so odd to me. He seems so odd. He is giant for a goblin, yet shorter than me. His face has the usual gnarled characteristics of a goblin, yet his eyes widen far more than any of his race.

"You're a half-breed," I say and the words echo through the giant hall.

"SHUT UP!" he screams, running suddenly towards me. He feints not a meter from my face and I fall to the ground without being touched, dust rising around me. His face is contorted and he squints his eyes and hunches more so he looks like a wizard playing goblin, his face spattered with makeup. "Shut up! Shut up! Vile wretched thing!"

I sit on the ground with wide eyes and watch him walk away from me. He doesn't seem so powerful anymore. Not when I've instantly found his insecurity. We are the only two in the room, but I can tell he wouldn't have had such a reaction if I'd said that with his gangsters nearby. They all admired his giant and menacing qualities. I could see it just being in the same room with Jagobin and his followers. But Jagobin isn't proud. He uses his abnormalities to his advantage, even if he hates every one of them. I can't say how I know that. I just suspect it.

"Are you jealous of wizards?" I ask him.

"I hate wizards down to my very core," his cruel voice intones. His human eyes glimmer in the paling yellow light from the windows.

"So you wish you were a goblin," I say.

"I _am_ a goblin," he tells me. I thought he would lash out, but he doesn't. He's fighting his own urges to maintain control of himself, though I don't know why. We're alone and I am his prisoner. He can say and do whatever he likes. Unless he's trying to manipulate me somehow. For what, I am clueless.

"Will you tell me why you brought me here?" I ask.

"You know," he says simply.

"Indeed I do not," I say. In truth, there is something to what both of us are saying. I know that he's discovered I'm somehow different, but I don't know how, in what way, or what he intends on using this information to accomplish. "Please explain it to me."

"You know," he sneers. "Don't pretend otherwise."

It's time to play dumb to find out what he knows. I sigh and try to roll my eyes convincingly. "So many creatures think they know me and just fail to. Everyone has a different opinion on what I am. I can't possibly just happen to know what yours is, especially when I've never met you before. Must you make things so difficult? Contrary to popular belief, I can't read your mind."

I must have done well for his expression seems genuinely put back. I know then that his information isn't from a magical source which would describe me accurately. It is from some creature. Honestly, it could come from any animal I have encountered, yet most of them don't know anything about my psychic qualities. The only beings that do are Darius and Sloane and I don't think it's them at all. Not only don't dwarves normally associate outside of their own kind, but why would they bother helping me? Their only goal is settling safely and living quietly. That is all any dwarf wants, save Dallen Ruby. I know that's a flimsy thing to base trust on, but the fact is that their presence is just too obvious for them to be spies and I've grown to trust them, even in the short time I've known them. I don't think it's them.

I think about Leo who knew of me first and banish the thought from my mind. Absurd. Scorpius is certainly devious enough to do so, but it isn't in his nature to go so far. Then, I realize. My mind dives back to the conversation I had with Scorpius just yesterday.

* * *

Leo stood in the center of everyone who'd stayed in the girls' changing room of the Quidditch stadium. They all listened as Lysander and Nathan relayed the events that had occurred. When they had entered the tent, before they told the group everything, Nathan had pulled Leo aside to tell him about his mother.

"Convenient that they couldn't tell me a thing," Leo sneered.

"They were trying to look out for you," Nathan told him.

"They have a funny way of doing that."

"Leo—."

"Don't defend them. If they really do care for me half as much as they claim to, they would have found a way to tell me everything that was happening. Carina did everything she could to keep me away from her so her secret wouldn't be discovered, but the minute she found out I would be endangered by doing so, she told me everything, even at risk to her own security. Say what you will about her, but she at least has some idea of respect."

By the time the two boys completely displayed the events to the people in the tent, Leo could hardly process what it all meant.

"And my father?" he asked.

"Gone with Mrs. Scamander to drop Jeremy off at the hospital wing."

"What happened to Jeremy?"

"Hit with something that knocked him right out. It was the lesser of the goblin attacks, but he'll be sleeping for the next couple of days."

Leo smirked. Carina didn't want to get him involved and now he wasn't. He couldn't help but wonder if this had anything to do with how she was connected to the Pearl and the Pearl carved out destinies. He didn't want to believe anyone could be so powerful, but if it was true, he was glad that power belonged to Carina and not someone like Jagobin.

"So Jagobin is using Carina to get Leo to hand over the Living Pearl," George reasoned.

Rose shook her head. "No. Carina said that Jagobin doesn't know how to remove the Living Pearl and has no reason to suspect we do. Leo wouldn't turn himself in to be killed and have the Pearl taken."

"It's because she's connected to the Pearl," Leo said. "He doesn't want to operate the Pearl himself because not only doesn't he know how to remove it, but he knows that it emphasizes bad qualities."

"And if there's anyone with bad qualities, it's a goblin chasing down a sixth-year wizard for a piece of jewelry," George smirked.

"He's planning on using Carina to operate the Pearl because of her abilities. She's its true owner. The Pearl chose her. It won't harm her the way it will everyone else and besides she's already a psychic. That in itself could be useful to him."

"She's what now?" Lysander asked.

Nathan patted his shoulder. "This was explained earlier. You weren't present. I'll fill you in later."

Lysander cursed. "Leaving me out. I hate you bloody faggots."

"So what do we do now?" Rose asked. "How do we save Carina? We have the Pearl. That ought to be of some help."

"The Pearl is useless without Carina," Leo said. "We'd need to remove it." All eyes went to Scorpius.

He looked around. "I am not telling anyone how it's removed without a plan for what we're doing."

"Oh, c'mon Scorpius," George complained.

"No. Carina and I had a deal and I don't intend on backing out of my portion. She said that if all else fails, we remove it. All else has not failed. We've barely even developed a Plan B. Criticize me all you like, I'm not telling you a thing about how to remove the Pearl."

"We need to remove it now so we can pass it off to her when we meet with her," George told him.

"Which will do nothing! We're not removing it solely for the sake of feeling like we're doing something instead of just sitting here. Like it or not, she trusted my judgement on this one and the Pearl stays with Leo, at least for now. That was the deal."

"What deal?" George asked. "If your part for her was the Pearl, what was her part for you?"

Scorpius and Patricia looked at one another.

"We can't say," Patricia said.

Nathan looked between the two. "Hold on. Something happened back at St. Mungo's."

"A multitude of things, in case you'd forgotten," Lysander said snidely.

"No, listen, Mr. and Mrs. Wespurt didn't want to tell us why Leo's mother had been turned into an owl, don't you remember? It was the one thing they refused to speak about. Here and now, Scorpius and Patricia have a singular thing they refuse to tell us about. Carina already told us that everything here is connected."

"Meaning whatever Leo's parents are hiding is probably the same as whatever you two are hiding," Lysander finished. "And since they refused to talk, I suggest you spit it out."

"I'm not sure it's our secret to tell," Patricia said.

"Damned if it's not," Scorpius told her. "I've never wanted to keep this to myself and telling Carina was the best thing I ever did with this damned secret. I don't care if it hurts Frieda. She's annoying anyway."

"Frieda?" Rose asked. "What's this to do with Frieda?"

"Maybe you should ask her," he said, but then suddenly turned about and scanned the room.

"She's gone," Patricia said.

"Does that honestly surprise you?" Scorpius asked. "At least she has shame. There's a sign of humanity."

"Don't say things like that."

George shouted, "Would somebody explain what's going on before I curse someone?!"

Scorpius sneered. "It was all Frieda's fault."

* * *

 _"Would you tell me what happened?" I asked._

 _Scorpius smirked. "You know how much I hate the Potters and Weasleys. I was trying to dig up dirt on them and I ended up finding some on a different family entirely. Tell me, did you know Frieda was an orphan?"_

 _"Yes. What about it?"_

 _"Well, she was never adopted. Where do you think she stays over the summer?"_

 _"The Scamander estate," I shrugged. I assumed everyone knew that._

* * *

"The Scamander estate?" George repeated disbelievingly. Everyone looked to Lysander and Lorcan.

Lysander shrugged. "We never speak much to her. We've never gotten along. We don't much see her either. She stays in a cottage we have in another country in the middle of nowhere. Our mother often goes there to work and just keeps an eye on Frieda. I've never been there myself, nor am I allowed to ask why she's there."

"She's stays in a shack in the middle of nowhere?" George asked. "Merlin, that sounds like torture for Frieda. She hates being alone. She even makes me go to the bathroom with her."

"Too much information," Albus said.

"The point is the very description sounds awful."

* * *

 _"It was," Scorpius said, spraying the floor with cleaner and scrubbing at it with the toothbrush in his hand. "She hated that place, but didn't have much of a choice. She had to stay there over the summer. They had to keep her out of the way."_

 _"Out of the way?" I asked. "From what?"_

 _"From who, more like."_

 _I paused before I made him continue. "How do you know all of this?"_

 _"My family owns several estates around Europe. I haven't even been to them all. Over the summer, though, I went to one in Italy because, as I said, I was trying to find dirt on the Potter and Weasley families and I know they have a summer cottage there. Instead, I found Frieda. She had discovered all the children that spoke English in town and made steadfast friendships with them."_

 _I smiled. "Sounds like Frieda. That also explains why she's so fascinated with muggle things."_

 _"Well, I found out that even though the name was under the Potter's, it's mostly used by the Scamanders."_

 _"I didn't know it belonged to the Potter family. I just know Frieda stays there because she has nowhere else to go. It's much better than an orphanage."_

 _"True, but didn't you ever wonder why there and not with one of her friends? Didn't you ever wonder why the Scamanders are harboring her in the first place?"_

 _"I've asked her many times," I said truthfully, though Frieda doesn't remember. It was in my vision. "She never wants to tell me. She's good at steering conversations where she wants them to go. I'm guessing now that you didn't wait for her to tell you. You found out yourself."_

 _"The Scamanders are holding her for her real family."_

 _I stared wide-eyed at Scorpius. "You'd better have some good proof for what you're about to say next."_

 _"Trust me, I do."_

* * *

"We can't tell them!" Patricia stopped him. "It isn't our secret and if we're wrong, we'll be the laughing stocks of the school."

"Then I assume responsibility for what's said from now on," Scorpius told her. "After all, I'm already a laughing stock."

Nobody said a word, but some string inside Leo played a single-noted tinge of guilt.

* * *

 _"Freida is Mrs. Wespurt's niece," Scorpius said. "Leo's mother has a sister who got involved with a pretty shady wizard. From what I hear, he ran a lot of black market business in the magical community. Not a very big name, but dangerous nonetheless. When he found out his mistress had his baby, he killed her."_

 _"And spared Frieda? Why?"_

 _"She was hidden, I suppose," Scorpius shrugged. "But the Wespurts have never been rich and couldn't afford Frieda."_

 _"So they just left her in an orphanage."_

 _"They put her in foster care until they could come back for her."_

 _"But of course, they never did."_

 _"It would've been a bit too much responsibility for the free-spirited Myra Scamander, taking care of a second child with the shame of that child being the bastard daughter of a criminal," Scorpius spat loathingly._

 _"I'm sure there was…" I was about to create some feasible excuse, but it was then that I realized Leo's mother ran off herself and left him and her husband._

 _"There's no excuse for the way those people act. Reason why they've got such a screwed up son."_

 _"Watch it," I warned him. "Leo is an ambitious and intelligent wizard. Even if some of his views are skewed, he's a Gryffindor at heart and will fight for what he knows is right. It's who he is."_

 _Scorpius stuck the toothbrush in my open mouth and sat back as I spat and clawed at my tongue._

 _"Why did you do that?!" I asked._

 _Scorpius smiled. "Because I want you to remember that taste in your mouth when you realize you can't see through people and one day you're going to get let down by someone you believe in."_

 _"Leo is a good man," I repeat. "He is."_

 _"Keep telling yourself that. Yep. Everybody's good deep down. Even me."_

 _"I don't like the way you talk. Tell me how you found all of this out."_

 _"Well, first, I thought she was a bastard of Harry Potter since his was the name on the estate Frieda stayed at, but eventually I discovered that wasn't the case and I just, sort of, kept trying to figure out where she came from. Patricia eventually found out and she helped me connect her to Leo before long. You have to admit, they're a lot alike and not just in looks."_

 _He was right. Leo looks more like Frieda than he does his own parents, which is strange considering they're only cousins and different genders, but thinking about it then, I couldn't believe the connection didn't come to me sooner. They can both make friends with just about anyone and have very obvious prejudices against certain groups. Finally, it made sense why Frieda and Leo could both see me. It isn't random. They must both possess a common family trait._

 _"They are," I admitted._

 _"Then, when I tried to press Leo on it, he seemed clueless. I don't think his parents even bothered to tell him about her. To think the Scamanders put up with taking care of her for their friends just sounds disgusting."_

 _I sat there for a long time and thought about that, but the more I did, the more everything Scorpius said sounded right on target._

* * *

And now that I sit on the ground in front of this man-goblin and wonder how he knows so much about me, I realize that all this time I've treated Freida the same as every other witch and wizard in Hogwarts when I should have been treating her like my friend. I underestimated her and for that I will pay the price for I realize now that she is the one who told Jagobin everything about me.


	26. The Artificial Bloat

Chapter 26-The Artificial Bloat

"Frieda told Jagobin everything?" George asked disbelievingly. "How did she even know about Carina in the first place? She just sat here with us and said she couldn't believe Carina didn't tell her any of this."

"And then she conveniently vanished," Scorpius said. "I can only guess to tell Jagobin everything she'd just learned."

"One of the risks to getting everything out in the open," Leo admitted absent-mindedly.

"But why get involved with Jagobin in the first place?" George asked.

Scorpius leaned back against the wall. "Why else? Anger. Wouldn't you be angry if your family abandoned you? Wouldn't you want to take revenge on them? Frieda knew Leo's family was protecting this Pearl. She called on Jagobin when she found out Leo's mother was coming to the cottage she was staying at in Italy and they met her there. Frieda was the one to turn Mrs. Wespurt into an owl. That's why she wasn't murdered or kidnapped. Frieda wanted to ruin Myra Wespurt's plans, not get her killed. She wanted to punish her by putting the Pearl in the wrong hands. How she ever managed to put an inheritor's curse on Luna Scamander is anyone's guess. Those things are murder to write, not to mention illegal to anyone who isn't authorized by the Ministry to use one."

"The Wespurts knew that and didn't want to rat out Frieda," Nathan reasoned. "After all, she is still family. They don't want her to have a criminal record. That's why they didn't tell us anything. But they were wrong when they said it wasn't important."

"Who cares?" Leo said. "Frieda is a criminal. We can't tell the magical authorities what's happening now. They'd put Frieda away and this wasn't her fault."

"What are you talking about? Of course it was her fault. She needs to take responsibility for her own actions," Scorpius told him.

"She's a thirteen-year-old orphan who made a mistake," Leo spat back. "As if you've never made one of those. Besides, she's my cousin and my parents were heartless towards her."

"They didn't tell the police," George pointed out.

"To save their own skins, not hers," Leo said. "Knowing them, they only thought about the repercussions of having a convict in the family on their social well-being. They didn't think about her. I need to do better. I can't just abandon her and Carina to Jagobin. I need to find a way to save them, even if I have to do it alone."

"You won't have to do it alone," Rose told him. "Carina is my friend too."

"For the last day," George reminded her.

Rose gave her a look. "Well I wasn't asking you to come with us."

"Are you crazy? Of course I'm coming. Somebody has to look out for you two."

"Don't think I'm not going," Nathan added.

Soon everyone had volunteered to go, save the dwarves.

Leo looked at them.

"You must be out 'a yer bleedin' mind if you think I'm 'a just agree 'a go into Jagobin's lair without hearin' yer plan to do it first," Darius told him.

"For once, I agree with Darius," Sloane said. "If we go in there with our axes raised, we'll be turned to stone on the spot. Goblin magic isn't as strong as wizard magic, but used right, it can defeat us all."

"Don't worry," Leo said. "I know some people who can help."

 _So he's not that bad after all_ , Scorpius thought. He thought back to how Carina had vouched for Leo and he'd stuck a dirty toothbrush into her mouth. In that moment, he wished he could take that back. Because she was right.

* * *

Scorpius was right. He was right all along. I feel that chemical cleaning agent against my tongue and the roof of my mouth thinking about Frieda and how wrong I was. He might've been talking about Leo at the time, but he was right in the end. Part of me is so naïve and I'm not sure where it comes from after so many years of watching people. I should have become like Leo who hates discriminately, but I didn't and I wonder if it's because I'm the Sun Slave, as Darius and Sloane call me.

I sit in the giant, dusty room alone for some time before Jagobin enters proudly with Frieda. He doesn't show pride openly with a smile, but I can tell it swells inside of him until he sees that I am unsurprised by her presence and he tries to hide that something deflates inside of him. In fact, I think I have surprised him more than he has me in the short time we've known one another. I didn't fight when we met, I didn't run back to Hogwarts, I knew he was a half-breed, and now I know about Frieda.

I am playing a dangerous game. I should be trying to make him underestimate me so he doesn't know my strengths, but my ego is too big. I never thought I would admit that, but it's true. My need to appear mysterious and smarter than I really am is my main fault. It has been from the beginning. It's the reason Leo found out about me so easily. I cannot let it fail me again. I have to keep my mouth shut.

Frieda strides in behind him and she looks different. She isn't smiling maliciously or gleefully, nor is her head down and crying. She just seems empty and blank like she has no emotion. She doesn't wear her Ravenclaw uniform either. She's in her nice wintry grey robes.

They stop in front of me. I think they're waiting for me to make some smug comment, which I almost do, but I restrain myself and yawn as I wait, leaning against one of the many empty storage crates they keep lined against the wall. Being so relaxed near people isn't in my nature. It feels odd to force myself to be so.

For a moment, we are in silence and I wonder if the entire point of walking inside was to parade Frieda around the room. Frankly, I don't see why he's even shown her to me. She's his spy. Why would he reveal her secret? And that's when I realize. He doesn't intend on ever letting me leave. I didn't expect much different, but it's surprising how much confidence he places in his own plans. I have to take advantage of that. Frieda is my only hope.

"Get up!" he shouts, walking quickly towards me. "I want to see that you're not an idiot."

"You will fail," I say, getting to my feet. "I am quite the idiot."

He stops and examines me from top to bottom. "I think you're lying."

"I'm not lying," I say. "I've made a great deal of mistakes." I look straight at Frieda. "And if I could do things differently, then I would for I now realize I'm not nearly so clever as I always thought."

Frieda knits her eyebrow, staring back at me. I think she understands. I look away and back to Jagobin.

He smiles.

"I have a story to tell you." He opens his mouth and proceeds to tell me that which is perhaps the longest story I have ever heard. He walks slowly though his childhood and creeps through his life sector by sector. I think he means for the story to be one of triumph and pride, of how he rose from the ashes of Voldemort's reign to build his own black market empire. His eyes widen and his voice builds to one of power. He is quite histrionic and I can tell he's given this speech many times before. Perhaps that's how he's gotten so many followers. He is an incredible speaker; however, the tale strikes me as nothing but a large brag. He talks about how much more intelligent he was than everyone else, how much harder he worked, and how much more successful he'd become. I look behind him at Frieda and she rolls her eyes. Is this how he's intended to get me to cooperate?

He speaks of the large monetary share he gives his gangsters, kept securely in his own bank accounts to be given to them upon request. The whole thing is so ridiculous, at first I want to laugh, but then I realized that these are goblins. Goblins control the banks. If he can control the money his own supporters get, what else can he control? There's already a figurehead that controls the banks, but I suspect Jagobin has significant power among his kind. He has the magic of both a goblin and a wizard and a demeanor that demands respect. With his so-called "empire," he could easily be controlling the banks. The goblins would surely die before they asked for help from anyone with their corruption.

Before long, Jagobin is finished in a scream of victory, standing atop a wooden crate in a galvanized state, arms taut far above his head. Frieda and I just look at him. He hops down and turns to grin at me, his cloak flying behind him theatrically.

"Together, we could bring balance to the goblin and wizarding races!" he says to me.

"Together is an interesting word to use," I say, "considering it implies equality. I would never be equal to you, Jagobin, nor would you ever treat me as such." No doubt he has asked the same of every goblin in this building.

"You are a psychic," he returns.

"And such tells me that the way in which you plan on bringing balance between our races is precarious at best."

"Precarious peace is better than none at all."

"So now it is peace? That is quite different from balance, I assure you, and I doubt we would agree on how to go about making it."

"You would be surprised."

"I doubt it. You're angry and the wizards need to be taught a lesson about how to treat other races, starting with the goblins; however, I doubt using their assets will do more than create a power struggle."

He seems to be settling into the fact that I'm a psychic. I'm glad I kept the limits of my power to myself. He can just assume I know his plan and I'll let him fill in what I don't know.

"Power is the only way to get respect."

"Power is _a_ way to get respect. It's your way, not mine."

He smirks. "And I suppose you think you have respect, then? Does this girl respect you?" he asks me, gesturing to Frieda who looks back at him coolly. "Tell me, where are your friends and family? Do they give you respect? Or don't they exist?" I stay quiet. I have no defense. "Perhaps think about my offer some before you question me."

"And what is your offer, pray tell?"

"Become my protégé, earn my respect and trust."

"And if I decline?"

He smiles. He seems to enjoy doing that. "I'll think of something creative."

He exits the room and I look over at Frieda. She just stares at me for a long minute.

"I'm surprised to see you here," I said.

"Heh. You—."

"I didn't think he'd actually let you into his lair."

She stops and gawks at me. "Don't tell me you knew?"

"Well, don't give me too much credit," I tell her, jumping to sit on one of the wooden crates. "It took me a long time to put the pieces together."

Her eyes had widened at the surprise, but they only grow in size as she shakes her head. Suddenly, she looks visibly upset. "Well, then, then why didn't you say anything?!" It takes but a second for her to look on the verge of crying. My back straightens. "Why didn't you ever confront me about it?!" Drops of water loosen from her eyes and stream down her face. She must've wanted to cry the entire time she was in here. That was why she never spoke. I don't very well know how to deal with tears and for all I know they could be fake, so I pretend they don't exist.

"How long have you worked with Jagobin? Just this year?"

She laughs in the midst of mopping her face with her fingers. "Just this year? Before I even started at Hogwarts."

I jump down from the crate. "What?"

"He's my half-brother, Carina! Two decades before my father even met my mother; he had Jagobin with some goblin woman. That's why Jagobin has me here. That's why he trusts me. We're kinsmen."

I know it is the wrong question to ask, but my curiosity gets the better of me. "Is your father still alive?"

"You think Jagobin would keep him alive after what he did to him? He blames our father for his very creation into the twisted being he is and all the ridicule he had to suffer. He practically worships the mother who died giving birth to his half-breed form."

"Careful what you say. Jagobin could be listening."

"Hardly. He's too conceited for that." Her voice cracks as she says it. She stuffs her cloak into her mouth to stifle the sobs she lets out.

I walk towards her with a blank expression. She looks back up at me and takes the fabric from her mouth, sniffling.

"And you don't even believe me."

"I believe your story," I tell her truthfully. "I just don't understand why you're crying. You told Jagobin all about me not an hour ago."

She gives me a disgusted look. "Obtuse as ever, I see. Do I really need to spell it out for you? I hate it here. I hate this place. I hate Jagobin! I want to kill this life and start fresh, even if it is back in the orphanage. I told Jagobin because I was angry. You never told me any of that! You never told me you were psychic or cursed to live alone! I was stupid and wanted to surprise everyone. I acted to spite you instead of being logical like a true Ravenclaw would have. But how could you never talk to me, even when you knew about me?! How could you never confront me on any of what I've gone through in all the time we've known one another?"

I throw my hands up. "Frieda, you have a sea of disciples. I honestly thought you would have told one of them. I thought you had friends that you entrusted everything to and that they did likewise in you. I never pictured us as good friends at all."

"We aren't?" she asked. This seemed obvious to me, but she looks genuinely surprised. I am surprised at her very reaction.

"Frieda…we barely speak and when we do, it's only for a short time. We don't know much of anything about one another—."

"That's not true."

"What's my surname?"

She stops and looks at me. "Your surname?"

"My second name. My last name. What is it?"

"That…that's not fair! You're cursed!"

"It wouldn't matter, Frieda. When you do talk to me, it's because you want something and that's it."

"That's not true."

"When you found out I was friends with Rose, you were immediately suspicious she was using me, weren't you? Suspicious because you try to do the same thing constantly."

"I do not! Maybe I just wanted something interesting to talk about or do once in a while. That's how friendship works, Carina. You scratch my back, I scratch yours."

"I don't remember you ever doing any scratching."

"What do you think I'm doing now? I know the way out of here. I can help you escape."

I nod. "I appreciate the thought, Frieda, but I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't want to be."

Frieda's face drops. "What are you talking about? Are you mental? Jagobin kills his prisoners."

"I've lived too long trying to keep secrets from everyone. That way of life worked when my curse was wholly controlling me, but now things are changing. People remember me and the things I do. I can't keep track of who knows what. I'd just rather everything be open. Besides, he wouldn't kill me. Not when he wants to use me, though I'm not sure how he intends on getting the Pearl without Leo."

"He doesn't. The plan was always obvious. Snatch Leo when he's out of Hogwarts protection. He knows my aunt and uncle wouldn't dare contact the magical authorities. Mr. Wespurt would lose his job as an auror if they knew all that has happened. They acted stupidly and because of that Jagobin has always had the upper hand. All they've done is made him wait which just gives him more time to prepare. The instant Leo leaves Hogwarts, they'll know and have the drop on him. The fight will be over before it starts."

I smile. "I gather Jagobin is more used to flexing his muscles than he is to forming plans."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that everyone we told in addition to the Wespurts and Scamanders are coming to save me. Even without auorors, that's still roughly twenty people on our side. Tell me, how many people are in Jagobin's organization?"

"Well…I—I don't know. He's extremely slippery when it comes to how his business is run. He calls it 'compartmentalization.' He says things run better when one faction of his group doesn't worry about the others. I've personally only seen five other goblins and I only know three personally, but that's probably isolated. I'm barely ever here, after all."

I stop and think to myself. He only brought six goblins with him when he came to the hospital. He had us easily matched, but if he'd brought more, we wouldn't have even given them a fight. Additionally, when I came here, I didn't hear a lot of noises. It was silent. You would think a busy headquarters would be filled with voices, but they're all probably away…on business.

I look over at Frieda and it puzzles me again how he seems to so wholeheartedly trust her. Frieda could easily fool Jagobin into thinking she was a genuinely loyal sister, especially if she started out being so and spends most of her time away from him, but why even bother to get her? She isn't a particularly talented witch and the fact that she even is a witch, to boot hailing from the part of the family he hates, should make him despise her. He killed his father. He was going to have Leo, technically his cousin, killed as well just for the Living Pearl. None of it adds up. The instant Jagobin learned about Freida, he should have killed her. So why didn't he?

My mind jumps back to something he said. He was talking about how the wealth distributed in his organization is equal and high, but if not even Frieda knows how many people are in the organization, maybe no one else does either and he's not really giving everyone a high share of the profits, it's just a tiny portion. Assuming he doesn't set anything to be claimed for taxes, there's only one way he could get away with that.

"If you had to guess, how many people would you say are in this organization?" I ask her.

She shrugs. "I really don't know. Maybe a couple hundred?"

"Why so many? You've only seen five."

"Because there has to be that many to operate everything that's going on here. You have no idea how much he gets done. The Living Pearl is a bounty for sure, but the main reason he hasn't taken a more active approach to getting it is because of how much he has to run."

"What kind of people does he take prisoner?"

"What does that have to do with—."

"You said that he kills prisoners like me. Who does he usually keep down here? Clients? People who get in the way? Workers?"

"All of those. Usually he catches the people he doesn't like pretty fast and shuts them up down here until he gets what he wants out of them. Now, would you tell me what's going on?"

I shake my head. "It's just a theory, but I have the feeling this organization is a lot smaller than Jagobin says it is. In fact, I'll bet the whole thing only runs on a couple dozen people."

"I told you, it's too big to run without massive numbers of—."

"He has more people. He just doesn't keep them around."

Frieda's eyes widened. "The prisoners," she said. "I had friends in Italy. A lot of them have old family ties to the mafia. Back when it was still prominent, the mob would take desperate, nameless aliens and hire them for discrete jobs. Then, they'd kill the strangers so there was no way to trace the crimes back to the main leaders of the organization legally."

"I'll bet Jagobin does the exact same thing. How much do you get paid?"

"I don't," she said. "I'm his sister and a witch. I'm paid in life. Why?"

"Because he was talking about how much he pays his workers and I have the feeling it's one of the reasons he artificially bloats the size of his organization's members. If the goblins working here think that there are hundreds of other employees, they'll think the pay is being spread throughout the organization and making their monetary gains naturally lower when, in reality, Jagobin keeps an overwhelming portion to himself. I'll bet the majority of the reason he leads people to think there are so many of them isn't just for the outside world, but his employees as well. It wouldn't surprise me if only those at the top of the chain here knew how many people worked for Jagobin, maybe not even them."

"So Jagobin might not be nearly as powerful as he leads everyone to believe," Frieda concluded. "It's all one giant illusion."

"He probably spends more time maintaining that lie than anything else."

"It is what keeps the aurors off of his back. They know they can't catch him. I just can't believe nobody's thought of it before."

"It could be untrue," I say again, "but, as you said, the organization does a lot a work and everyone knows it. That's what throws people off. Jagobin could just use expendables." I stop and look at Frieda. What if she's an expendable? What if that's why Jagobin keeps her close but not too close? It's so she'll trust _him_ , not the other way around. I rush to her. "Can you get out of here? Will Jagobin allow it?"

"They'll know where I am," she tells me. "They're geniuses with tracking spells."

I nod. "That's expected. Please, though, be careful."

She smirked. "I should be saying that to you considering the circumstances."

"Leo will come to save me," I tell her. "But I can't be sure that he even knows you're here."

"It won't matter for me," she sighs. "I'll be found out one way or the other and I'll be punished for what I've done. I deserve to be."

"Freida," I tell her. "If you get the chance, run away. I don't want you to be killed in this."

She looks up at me. "Are you kidding? After all I've done, running away would be cowardice. For once, I want to be brave." She steps away from me, smiling. "And I know exactly how I'm going to do it."


	27. Rose Kicks Serious Ass

Chapter 27-Rose Kicks Serious Ass

The group stood around the Slythern table in the Great Hall. The windows were black in the pre-dawn hours and the school was silent save the occasional murmuring of idle conversation from the pictures along the walls. The school was charmed to remain room temperature, but Leo still twitched and shivered uncontrollably. He was jittery from coming out of his sleeping potion. They had each taken one to drift off last night so they'd be rested for whatever it was they had to do today. They'd missed the Gryffindor party. He recalled his dorm mates shaking him to get up and come share a pint of butter beer as he drifted off uncontrollably to sleep.

Mrs. Scamander laid a large white sheet of parchment on the table and spread it wide to reveal a basic house plan.

Luna Scamander had spent the previous months of her life in a hospital bed in the mental ward of St. Mungo's. The time away from the sun had soaked all but her irises in bleach. Even those gleamed silver in the candlelight. Bone white, every part of her, like an albino. Even her hair had completed the transformation and but a few strands of blonde emerged from the sea of lost pigment. She was a ghost to the highest degree. With her hands on the white page, he could barely see them.

"This is a sketch of the place I found in the public Ministry files. It's big, but I don't think Jagobin uses all of the facilities. It would be too much to run."

"What are the facilities?" Leo asked

"An old low-security prison," Luna informed them. "Before it was decommissioned because of health problems, it was an Azkaban for petty criminals."

"And how did Jagobin get his hands on something protected by the Ministry?" Leo asked.

"They sold it to him."

"I'm sorry?"

"He bought it from them when the place was being shut down. He bought it under a false name, but that was easily traced."

"Why didn't the Ministry look into it?" George asked.

"What reason had they to suspect the buyer of a cheap property was up to no good? There were several people who wanted it and he won the bidding. One does not generally look for a criminal record from a buyer unless the object is dangerous and this facility certainly isn't. The money was the only important thing."

"And how do you know all of this?" Lysander asked. "You were cursed as soon as Frieda turned Mrs. Wespurt into an owl. You hardly had time for all of this."

"We've been harboring Frieda over half of her life. And I still had my faculties before, even if nargles do get in the way. Pesky nargles…"

"Mum…"

"The point is I've known about Jagobin far longer than he's known about Frieda or the Living Pearl. I would have told the aurors before if I trusted them."

"One again, your paranoia has led you in the wrong direction," Mr. Wespurt muttered.

"I wouldn't be talking," Luna told him in her wispy voice, turning back to look at the man. "If it weren't for your concern for your own reputation and your wife's foolish decisions, the Living Pearl would be in a secure vault in Gringots right now."

"I did everything I could—."

"We don't have time to argue. What's done is done. Now, we need to get back your niece, the Living Pearl, and its master." She turned back to the room layouts despite Leo's father's behind her looking like he'd like nothing more than to quarrel into the morning.

"So how do we get in?" Leo asked.

"Getting in is easy, really," Luna told them. "It's getting out that's quite impossible."

"It looks like an office building," Leo commented as they stood outside of the old prison. To muggle eyes, it probably looked the same as it did to them. It was a three-story brick building with far too many windows that, in this case, just so happened to be tinted black. Surrounding it were quaint little trees that bordered an industrial fencing system which boxed in the cleanly cut rectangle of a building.

"Hard to believe that underneath that is a prison," Rose agreed.

Albus stumbled back to the group.

"Done vomiting?" Scorpius asked him.

"Oh, lay off. You vomited too your first apparation lesson," Leo told him.

"Because a girl left her leg behind, not because I apparated."

"How do we get in?" Rose asked, crossing her arms.

"I'm not versed in goblin etiquette, but I'd recommend the front door."

"Are you quite serious? It's only the four of us."

"With the rest on backup if we get into trouble," Scorpius replied walking backwards towards the building. "So why don't we exercise our backup? See if they're necessary."

"Scorp, wait."

He stopped.

"What do you want, Rose? We've memorized the building's structure, practiced our dueling, gotten the inside scoop from a woman who's been tracking Jagobin for years and an Unspeakable, not to mention you've been layered with so many potions, your weight is probably equal to mine. Now, Luna said the only way into that building is through the front door. If we're captured, we have George, Patricia, Lysander, and Nathan on immediate stand-by. If they don't snatch us, we still have two adult wizards and the aurors if worse comes to worse. If you're too afraid to go inside, then go back. What a Gryffindor."

She put her hands on her hips. "I was just going to say that you shouldn't stuff your wand in your back pocket like that. I heard of people losing valuable parts."

"Ah…Yes, well, I was just taking that out. Let's go."

The four held their wands tight in their hands and hid them in their robes as they walked casually up to the front door. The air surrounding the place was still foggy from the cool night before. A layer of frost veiled the grass in white. Leo looked back at the horizon. The atmosphere was lightly glowing, but the sun hadn't yet peaked over the Earth's edge. He watched it for a minute, wondering if Carina could feel it from deep in the underground. Of course she could. She was the Sun Slave. As long as the sun reigned overhead, she was controlled by it.

Scorpius pulled at the door. Locked.

"Alohamora," Albus said, pointing to the lock. Surprisingly, it opened with a click. It must've just been to keep muggles or other magical creatures out because there were no charms. Frieda was only a third year so she was probably too young to cast any outside of Hogwarts and the goblins didn't have that sort of magic.

The four walked into a surprisingly clear lobby. It was relatively dark and cold since the sun hadn't yet risen and the entryway opened into a set of three open hallways lined with pictures and doors. It looked like an office building. A goblin turned the corner blowing on a steaming cup of tea in his hands. The instant he did, the cup shattered against the white tile floors. Leo dodged the electric bolt that slashed through them, throwing himself through the air. He vaulted the front desk and pointed his wand to the goblin's throat before the creature had the chance to smack an emergency button to lock down the facilities.

"Stupify."

The goblin fell to the ground and Leo lowered his wand.

"Scorpius!"

"What?"

"We could've used him to help navigate the facility."

"And risk him alerting the entire place that we're here? Fat chance. Let's hide the bloke."

The two grabbed the goblin and hauled him behind the front desk.

Rose got up and walked around carefully, her eyes swishing over the entire room, taking in each detail with a single stare. She removed a tiny potion bottle from her satchel and held the hexagon-shaped container between her thumb and index finger, looking through its clear liquid at the boys at the desk. She gripped it in her palm, shook it, and smashed it against the decorative brick interior wall. The potion dissolved the glass into smoky purple tendrils before it had the chance to fall. Instantly, it grew into a cloud that undulated and passed about the room like a living creature.

"Nothing," she said, shaking her head as she stepped forward. She flicked her wand at the tea cup. "Repairo." It quickly reconstructed itself. She walked over and picked it up, setting it down on the front desk in front of the boys. "It doesn't make sense. If this really is Jagobin's layer, there should be an army of guards here to meet us. I prepared most of my potions for the initial barriers, but my detections are picking up nothing."

"So you don't think this is Jagobin's layer?" Leo asked.

"Or it's a trap," Scorpius suggested.

"We're at the disadvantage and are coming to him. What good could a trap do?" Rose said. "There was a goblin here. If this isn't where Carina is, then we certainly will be able to find out. I say we have a look around. There's nothing to lose. It's just peculiar. Not even regular businesses have security this low."

"Maybe it'll beef up when we get to the actual prison," Albus said.

"Likely, but why not bar us beforehand?" she asked her cousin.

"How am I supposed to know? I'm not Jagobin. I say we split up, two and two, so we're not alone, but covering more ground. Remember, the entrance is in room 145C, assuming it hasn't been changed." He gestured to Leo and the two of them ran down the right-hand hallway while Rose and Scorpius stalked down the left.

"Can't say I ever thought I'd see Albus calling the shots," Scorpius commented.

"I don't like this. Why is no one in the building?" Rose questioned, ignoring him. "Luna said that Jagobin had hundreds of goblins working for him. This place is empty."

Scorpius rolled his eyes. He stopped walking, grabbed her arm, and looked her in the eye.

"Listen, this is a _rescue_ mission on _enemy_ territory. Just calm down and stop trying to calculate what's about to happen every second of the day. It's like your wand. Sometimes, it's better not to think."

Rose pulled her arm out of his hand, backing away. "For a situation like this, that's idiotic."

"You are definitely the daughter of Hermione Weasley."

"Hermione Granger," Rose corrected. "My mother didn't take my father's last name when they were ma—EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!" She flew back crashed against the ground, sliding along the smooth tiles until she rolled over and jumped back to her feet.

Before Scorpius could even wave his wand, the goblin had flown through the air and had his hand around the boy's throat, squeezing it as easily as he would a soft fruit.

"Scorpius!" she screamed. She ran and tackled the goblin, freeing the Slytherin so he could stumble back and breathe against the wall.

The goblin wrestled with the girl, turning her over and punching her face, her eye, her nose, her mouth, until it was blistered and bloody. She slashed her nails across his face as she reached into her bag with her other hand and grabbed a plastic potion bottle. When she got a free moment, she punched him square in the jaw, grabbed the top of the bottle with her teeth, pulled it off, and spat the cap into his face. He screamed in anger, grabbing her throat.

"Rose!" Scorpius croaked, getting to his feet after sliding down the wall for support. Just seconds of the goblin's claws around his throat left him impaired. He waved his wand at his throat, muttering a quick healing spell.

Rose's throat felt like it was being contracted. His fingers were too strong, closing the channel that let her speak, that let her breathe. Her oxygen supply was cut off. She saw spots dance like little red and green jellybeans across her vision. _How very like Christmas_ , she thought as she stuffed the open end of the potion bottle into the goblin's mouth. Before he could spit it out, she crushed the plastic in her fist and forced the contents into his mouth.

His fingers let go. He jumped up, screaming as his mouth seared and acid traveled down his throat. He released a jet of lightning that shattered the window and dove through the open hole, onto the property, screaming as he ran until his voice cut out from the damage.

Scorpius looked down at Rose, on the floor, regaining her breath. He bent down and quickly repaired her damaged throat with a flick of his wand.

"Merlin, woman. What else have you got in that bag?"

Rose smiled and took some deep breaths, rubbing her neck to remove the feeling of those boils on his skin and his nails digging into her neck. She still felt like her trachea was closing and she wouldn't get enough air.

Scorpius offered her a hand and she fit hers into his. He pulled her up and the two stumbled, still breathing heavy.

Albus rounded the corner and waved the two over. "We found the entrance," he panted. "You have got to see this."


	28. Jagobin's Plan

Chapter 28-Jagobin's Plan

I open my eyes and sit up instantly. I hadn't even realized I'd fallen asleep, but here I lay on the floor with a kink in my neck that I try to massage out. I feel strange and yucky, like I've been inhaling too much dust and things have started to grow on my skin and in my lungs. I look up at the windows and my eyes are met with the first bit of sun that peaks through.

I stay there for a long while, staring up at the sliver of golden light so the rays that shoot through the window drive straight into my eyes and across my brain. I haven't seen them in twelve hours, but it feels like twelve days. I don't know how long I stare. It feels like seconds, but it must be well over an hour because the sun eventually rises too high for me to see. I close my eyes and let the heat from them drift downwards through my body. It makes me feel warm and rested. It loosens my joints. The kink in my neck soon vanishes.

I steadily lower myself down and lay back against the concrete, warm from my body and the sun, and my eyes wander to the crates. It couldn't be that easy. I can't just climb up and break the glass of the windows. No, it would be magically protected. Jagobin would have something keeping this room sealed. Unless he doesn't.

I pick up a piece of rubble the size of my hand sitting beside me, sit up, and chuck it. The rock bounces off of the window harmlessly, making a hollow thunking sound as it hits before dropping back to the floor and splitting in two. Plastic. Fantastic. If only I had my wand; I could melt it down. A true witch could climb up there, place a hand to the window, and melt her own print into the plastic to weaken it or just burn through it completely. But I am not nearly as powerful as my classmates. Maybe if I had bothered to work at my magic, but it's too late now. I am too old to ever improve.

Even if I did have stronger magic, I have no wand and it probably has magical barriers on it. That makes me think. We're underground. I'm sure we're underground. The sun is far away from me. I feel every meter of the astronomical unit separating the two of us and the extra space between the sun and me is practically visible. I'm several levels down. The only reason the sun feels so real is because it's an image of the actual sun outside. It must be connected with a window far above, like the enchanted windows in the Ministry of Magic. This isn't a window at all. It's a trick. _Why go to the trouble?_ I wonder.

I look to my left when I hear the door open. Frieda stands in the entrance.

"Good morning, Carina," she says stiffly. "Your friends never came last night. I don't suppose Leo held off because he wanted to go to the Quidditch party?"

I shake my head, pressing my fingers into my hair. "He wouldn't do that. He's just being logical. He's smart. He'll wait until he has everyone together and gathered a clear plan before he comes. He needs to rest after the Quidditch game as well."

"Well, he'd better not rest much longer. Jagobin is not a patient goblin and I dread what comes next."

I knit my eyebrows. "What comes next?"

She looks hesitant. "Listen, I just want you to know, I'm sorry. It was my fault and all my idea. I made it up as some way to buy time with Jagobin. I…I didn't know it could actually work."

I get to my feet. "Frieda, what are they going to do? I might be able to help if—."

The door behind her opens and two goblins nod to Frieda—evidently they know one another—before they head towards me. She hands me a solid gaze before she disappears through the door. I wonder for a moment why she told me nothing last night when I remember that Frieda's just another expendable to Jagobin. He may not have told her what he would do until this morning.

One of the goblins grabs my shoulder and forces me down to my knees. He has no real strength, but I do as he wants. He binds my wrists behind me and commands that I stand. He knows I'll do as he asks. They know the ways through this place to avoid traps, but I am clueless. I could fall into fifty of them just by running down the hallway and as we walk out the door and be easily be hauled back. There is hardly any point.

* * *

I hear a door open and I'm pushed inside a room where I fall to my knees on the ground. _Why is everything here cement?_ I wonder as they cut my bindings again and let the blindfold drop.

A larger goblin with a face beyond strange is standing there. He kneels before me and I can smell something strange on him. Moth balls.

"You know, I'm surprised by you," he says.

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Because I didn't think you were an idiot."

"I thought I was an idiot if I didn't join you and I didn't; therefore, you shouldn't be surprised."

"For a goblin, my company is a smart choice," he lies. It is for the benefit of the other three goblins in the room. "But for a witch, it's just plain stupid." Frieda isn't here. I thought she would be, but she's gone. Jagobin can't stop confusing me. I thought for sure he'd have her standing in plain view. At first, I think he knows it will torment Frieda to see whatever he plans to do being done and that she'll try to stop it, so he's removed her so as to have no one save me. Then, I think better of it. I didn't trust Freida before and look where it got me. If she says Jagobin trusts her, I can't argue. Maybe Jagobin is just upset that I wasn't surprised to see Frieda, his big reveal, so he doesn't have her here to spoil his fun. That sounds more like the man she described.

He sighs. "But, unfortunately, if you don't want to join me, I haven't much time, so I'll have to make you join me."

"But goblins can't do Imperious curses," I say. Unless his half-wizard status makes him able to control a wand, though I doubt it. Using one would only make him appear more advanced in the eyes of his goblin followers. He would wield it constantly.

"Imperious curse? I have something better. Get on the table."

I rise slowly to my feet and walk over to where there are two tables. They are the main part of the room. The room is barren and grey. There are torches to light the place, but even their great blaze is swallowed by the dull interior. I wonder where the fumes to those fires are going before I notice two vents in the ceiling to pipe air in and out.

I look down at the tables and notice the symbols. All along the tables are runes written in strange patterns and shapes, like the ones Lorcan had written. Part of me wishes I had taken Ancient Runes and learned to read these things.

Without hesitation, I get up on the table and lay flat. I'm not afraid. I thought I would be but I'm not. The unknown doesn't frighten me. Perhaps because I'm unknown to myself.

Beside me, I see Jagobin lay on the neighboring table.

"I don't understand what you plan on doing," I say as they bind my wrists and ankles to the table.

"You don't understand me and I don't understand you," he says. "Perhaps this will help change that." He looks straight at the ceiling. "Do it."

The goblins come to his table and tie him down. My head lifts and worry stabs through my chest with its dull blade. Why are they binding _him_? A flash of the two of us in searing pain passes through my mind, Jagobin running from the room in the middle of the procedure in a fit of hysteria and agony. The bindings could be to keep him there through whatever they're about to do.

Then, I see them lift bindings and tie down his neck. I don't have neck bindings. Why don't I have neck bindings? Why does he and I don't? Suddenly, I want some because the more Jagobin and I are in the same situation, the more comfortable I feel. Now, fear threatens to leak into my body through my skin, absorbing it from the air. It leaks outwards through my bones from deep inside of me to infect me with palsy.

A goblin puts his scraggly fingers against my forehead as I stare and slams my head back against the table. I keep it there. He does not tie my neck to the table. The goblin lays each of his palms flat on the two tables, closes his eyes, and begins to chant.

The runes around us begin to glow a daring red. When I look to the side, Jagobin is staring straight ahead, at the ceiling, unmoving. The goblin's chanting gets more intense. His voice rises and falls and goes into strange glottal stops that are part of no language I've ever heard. Jagobin's body is soon shielded by the unnatural red light darting upwards. It soon gets so thick and bright that I can see nothing. The chanting goblin's fingers next to me and my own arm are glowing red. I see nothing. I feel nothing. In fact, it is less than normal. I sit my head against the table and stare straight like Jagobin had. Things feel so strange and dirty like after cleaning for hours with a strange detergent and feeling the chemicals from it all over your skin. I feel those chemicals are everywhere on my body. That disgusting flavor from Scorpius's toothbrush bites my tongue.

My eyes start to close and my head droops to the side when I see that Jagobin's eyes are closed as well. _No_ , I think immediately. But then logic grabs my brain and slams it against the inner wall of my own skull and I black out. I must face whatever is coming.

It doesn't last more than a minute. I'm unconscious and then wake. It's over. My eyes open, I breathe. The air is clear. I try to lift my head, but I can't. That's when I realize. My neck is tied down.

I turn my head to the left and look at myself. I stare back. I blink. I smile maliciously. My goblin cronies untie me and I sit up and hop down from the table.

"Don't worry," I say, smiling. "It's temporary. I would never stay in the body of a witch."

And I am Jagobin. The feeling is strange. My breaths are more shallow, my fingers knobby like those of an arthritic man, and boils pop out along those parts of my body I can feel with bound hands. It isn't being Jagobin that's horrifying. It's seeing my own body controlled by someone else. And wondering what he'll do with it. But I know what he'll do with it. He'll destroy it. And I'll never get it back.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!" I scream. I scream and scream and scream until I see the goblins smiling and even then I still scream, even when I don't want to give them the satisfaction, I scream until my throat cuts out and won't let me ring out another note. Even then, I whine and groan and writhe in my restraints. I can't stop any of it. I don't know this body. I don't know it!

Jagobin grins as he watches me.

"So you finally broke. Now you know what it is to live in a goblin's body. I hope you wizards learn."

The comment makes me glare at him.

"Hah," I say. "Your body is nothing. I scream out of selfishness, not empathy.

He crosses his arms and squints, still intrigued with me.

I start, "You know, I used to think that if I ever had this wretched curse lifted, everything in my life would fall back into place and I could lead a normal life, but I realize that I was wrong. After befriending all the people that I have over the last few months, all of the witches and wizards who I need to use to get my own ends, I know now that I'm nothing special without my gifts. I'll just be a girl without money, relations, or skill. The only thing I will have is below average magic. That wouldn't bother me except I have so much to compete with all around me and I'm not sure I would be able to make it at life. How I live, my powers, is _who I am_. Now, it's there. Now, you're so selfish as to take it for yourself. My mind without my powers may as well be anyone else's. You have not left me a thing."

"Don't pretend as if wizards aren't selfish."

"Don't pretend to have a moral high ground," I counter. "No murderer is a good man."

"Wizards murdered one another in the war," he justified.

"This is no war."

"I am protecting my race."

"One that you only half belong to."

He strikes me across the face and though I feel strangely separate from this body while in it, the sting is real and connects me to that wretched cheek like it's my own. Just that one part of his body belongs to me now.

"LEAVE US!" he orders his goblins.

Immediately, the they file out of the room and I hear the door slam as Jagobin watches my eyes carefully. I don't mean to follow his, but I stare into them anyway because I can't escape them. He's trapped his own pupils and I've trapped mine. I realize it's so much harder to read my own eyes through somebody else's.

He's too fascinated with me. He likes me far too much. He's frustrated that he's unable to read me, like I was frustrated when Leo kept remembering me. It ruined everything. I couldn't ignore him. He knew me. The more I wanted him to forget me, the more I followed him, the more I talked to him, the more I _wanted_ him to remember me. I hated it. He must be stuck in that same place. He needs to kill me, but he doesn't want to for the same reason I didn't want to stop talking to Leo.

"You are worthless!" he spits. It doesn't have quite the same effect, though, as it did in his body and I look utterly foolish, a small girl with soft features trying to look intimidating. Perhaps it's just because I know myself too well and can't see my own face as being threatening.

"You're very clever," I return.

"I'm…" It takes a moment for him to process this. "Yes…" he agrees slowly, narrowing his eyes. I almost laugh.

"You're planning on using my body to access my curse so that you can bond with the Pearl and are able to control it. I'm not sure if that's how curses work, but I have to give you kudos for the idea." Assuming he doesn't know what's transpired between Frieda and me as she thinks, I decide to play with him. "Judging from all of the muggle movies Frieda watches, I'm going to assume you actually got the idea from her." His eye twitches in annoyance. Of course, I know he got the idea from Frieda, she just told me. I need to stop fooling people into thinking I'm smarter than I really am, but it's just _so much fun_ to irk this half-blood _._ "But that doesn't overshadow the genius of the whole operation," I say, trying to satisfy his ego as I realize I'm leading myself into dangerous waters. "I can only imagine the amount of planning and improvisation this must've taken to make work." Like waiting outside of a school and kidnapping me. Very complex. "It's too bad you're going to fail. Leo's coming to save me."

Jagobin smirks. "I'm counting on it."

"Right, right," I say. "You need the Living Pearl from him. Tell me, how do you intend on removing it?"

"I thought I'd just split his stomach. Unless you have a better idea?"

"No," I lie.

And that's when the alarm sounds. The room flashes red as the torches on the walls burn crimson flames. The alert is the screeching of some animal I don't recognize. It clearly echoes from the vent in the far corner of the room.

The goblins burst in through the door.

"Someone's in the building!" one of them says in his scratchy voice.

Jagobin narrows his eyes—my eyes. "I want the boy. You've seen his picture. Find him and lock whoever's with him in the cells. These are children. They should be no problem." As the goblins run back out of the room and down the hall, Jagobin turns to me in my body and smiles flirtatiously, shaking my hips a bit as he flips back my long, snarled black hair. "Wish me luck."

I shake my head. If he's trying to mimic me, he's failing.

Jagobin skips out of the room. I would laugh if I wasn't in this strange body. Everything feels uncomfortable. Breathing is harder. My lungs are shallower so every time I take a breath, it never seems like enough and always fight to get more, but I can't fit it all. And then when I breathe out, there is no relief. I feel like I am perpetually catching my breath. I'm always at that point just after I've run along the Hogwarts green in my bare feet, with the grass between my toes and the wind blowing back my hair. I'm walking along that green and breathing the always fresh air under that sun that controls me. My heart rate slows and I walk. But I can only take shallow breaths in that time when I need as much air as I can get. That is Jagobin's body.

I jiggle my restraints and wriggle my body. This way, that way, this way, that way. I get a good rhythm to it, but eventually I just get so frustrated with the exercise doing nothing to loosen my restraints in addition to it aggravating my breathing that I just give up and lay on the table. No one is there watching me, so I whine. I think if the ceiling were to cave in, I'd be trapped here, unable to run, and just have to watch it crash down on me. I'd rather die fleeing a crumbling prison than lay unmoving as it happens.

The room is still red. The sirens still blare. It makes my ears ring. It's so loud and terrible. I hate every bit of it. I want to clamp my hands over my ears and stuff them with clay and mud and grass and whatever else my fingers contact as I dig my fingers into the ground. The sound soon makes me want to scream. I think I should scream back until my voice gives out again. I yank and violently pull at my restraints. For hours. Hours it goes. Hours until the alarm shuts down. Hours until my wrists are sore and bleeding in a ring. Hours I'm twisting and screaming to come free. Hours until the rope at my neck comes loose.

I stop when I realize what's happened. There weren't originally neck restraints on these tables, so the goblins just nailed this one down. My relentless wiggling had made the twine come free. My head is free and I put it to immediate use. I'm flexible, strangely enough, in this goblin state. I bend towards my left wrist easily and bite the flap of the restraints with my teeth. It's a buckle like any other. I pull at it until the leather flap moves out of the frame and pull even harder so the prong pops out. Then, I let go. I wince at pulling my wrist out momentarily, but bite my inner cheek and pull my wrist out of the restraints. The skin lies uselessly over a bloody ring around my wrist and my arms shivers.

From there, the rest is so easy. I'm sore all over even from just lying there, but I undo all of my bindings and hop down from the table. It takes a moment to regain myself, the edges of the room moving to places they're not supposed to be, but I do and I walk to the edge of the room, at the open door. I walk down the hall. I keep walking, walking, walking. Soon…I'm running. I'm a goblin running. Merlin, it's so difficult. I try to catch my breath and nearly faint. This body isn't designed for—

"HEY!"

I turn back and see a boy standing in the hallway.

"Leo." I say, stepping forward.

"Stay back!" he shouts. "Where is Carina?!"

"What? I—." And then I realize. No I'm not. I'm Jagobin. But how do I tell him that? "I am Carina."

"Let me try again," he says. "Tell me where my friend is or I'll blast you to kingdom come."

"No, Leo, I can explain." I step forward.

"Incendio!" he shouts and a ball of fire shoots at me. I drop to the ground to narrowly miss it, staring wide-eyed at him as I lay on my back. He'll never believe me. What could I say to make him? He starts walking towards me. "I've searched this place inside-out and I know she's in here somewhere."

Then, I see myself. Like in a dream, I step out of the corner, into the hall behind him. I'm silent and still. There's a wand in my hand. My wand. My body is behind Leo, armed. Before I can open my mouth or pull him down to avoid the curse, Jagobin lifts my arm and shouts, "AVADA KEDAVERA!" Light streaks down the hallway and strikes Leo in the back.

He was looking at me. I am looking into his eyes and see the glow inside of them shut off. They no longer see me and he falls forward, at my feet.

"LEO!" I scream. I scramble to him and turn him over. His eyes are still open, but he just lays there, motionless. _No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no…_ I shake him and shake him. He must wake up. He must. My chest feels a hundred times heavier each second. It goes down through me like I've swallowed a glowing red steel needle and it's sinking through my body, burning a tiny hole through all of my vital organs. My heart is left with pinpricks that spills the blood from throughout my body down over my ribs and intestines like a mother pours a bucket of warm bath water over her child's head. "Leo," I say, shaking him lightly.

"He's dead, girl."

I look back at myself standing there, Jagobin, and shake my head. "If only you knew."

With that, I look down at Leo, my hand still on his chest that drums no beat. I bend over and kiss him. Right on the lips.

 **I open my eyes.**

I breathe, I choke, I writhe on the ground until I can feel my heart beating in my chest and know it hasn't been destroyed. None of me has. I am still me. I am who I am. Merlin, what a bloody miracle.

I look to my left when I hear the door open. Frieda stands in the entrance.

"Good morning, Carina," she says stiffly. "Your friends never came last night. I don't suppose—."

"Frieda!"

I scramble across the room and jump into her arms, pressing her to my chest. I pull away instantly to a bewildered-looking girl.

"Go!"

"What?"

"Don't wait. Go now. If you're to do it, do it _now_ , Frieda. Please." I look into her eyes, my hands gripping her arms as they shake uncontrollably from my vision. "You're our only hope."


	29. Frieda's Gambit

Chapter 29-Frieda's Gambit

Frieda is gone.

She was standing in the room with me.

"There are goblins on the other side of that door," she told me.

"I know," I said.

"How?"

"I just do. Can you escape?"

"Yes, but…"

She looked at her wand.

"Don't bother giving it to me," I told her. "I'm no better with them than Rose."

She shook her head. "I wasn't going to. I only wanted to do this."

She swished the branch over her head, drawing a ball of light from the air around us, and shot glowing power towards a tiny plastic window at the ceiling so it crackled in a shower of sparks. The window radiated a pinkish glow, but died the instant the orb of light had banged the window without leaving even a crack. I recognized the spell. She'd done it for me several times in school.

"Good luck," she told me.

The goblins waiting outside barged into the room and Frieda went for the door defenselessly. She vanished and now here I stand. Two goblins before me.

"One wrong move and you're dead," the one on the right tells me.

I pause at the comment and realize something.

"Wrong," I say, turning around to walk towards the back wall without so much as glancing at them over my shoulder. Evidently, he wasn't expecting that.

"Get back here!" he shouts. His threats would be menacing enough to send chills down my spine if I hadn't met Jagobin the day before and if I wasn't the sun's slave.

I reach the crates and climb on top of one. It's no harder than climbing out the window to the roof, so I do so easily. They won't attack me. They need me alive and unharmed. They need this body.

"We will attack!"

"So do it," I challenge, calling their bluff. I am nimble from stretching and lot of running and climbing the roof at school. It doesn't take me long to get to the top of each the crates. "I dare you."

But what can they do? If they try to stun me up here, I'll fall and break my neck. If they harm me, Jagobin will have their hides. They think I am trapped in here, so they are cautious instead of on the offense.

I stand at the top of the tower of crates I turn to them and grip the edge of the wall where the window is that Frieda smashed with her ball of light. I stare down at the two smaller figures. I am a stone figure cemented to the highest wall of a chapel, looking down at my parishioners. The two goblins look at me fearfully and say nothing. I think they fear I will jump and are ready to catch me. My hand touches the window behind me and provides small resistance before I can push my fingers through the gooey barrier.

I smile. "Goodbye." And with that, I fit my feet through the space and push my entire body through the window that is just large enough to allow my chest leniency. I only just manage to squeeze myself between the ceiling and wall. I must push through the strangely thick substance that is like some sort of cold molten glass that heals and conforms to my body. When my feet come out, I instantly notice there is nothing there. They wave around in air. I expected there to be a floor. Why would Frieda send me through this to drop to my death? Why would she send me through this at all when the goblins could easily come through after me? It is too late to go back now.

I grip the ledge of the window as I come through completely and once I am on the other side of the barrier, my eyes meet a cavern, deep and dark and wide so I can only see the wall against which I rest and the rounded ceiling above me. Below is an abyss of darkness. Hanging from a chain in front of me is a cage. I now realize how Frieda knew neither goblin would be following me.

* * *

Albus had never set foot in a prison before. Many of his older relatives went there now and then to visit people, his father especially, but his mother told him that Azkaban was no place for children. He hated when she called him a child. He was fifteen. He was one of the best charms wizards in his year, yet everyone treated him like a little boy in his family. It was frustrating. That's why he was rather satisfied when he stepped into the old prison and didn't feel any different. It was dank and dimly-lit and had different hallways lined with doors far too close together for any of the rooms on the other side to be a decent size. The entire place was concrete poured over a steel skeleton. The walls were slathered with thick globs of dull gray paint. The entire place was silent. It was cold, yet moisture was everywhere, making for a musty smell.

Albus whistled, walking forward and twirling around to get the full view of the empty entrance. The sound waves echoed down the halls.

"This place is cool," he said, opening a tiny squeaking flap in a cell door to peek inside. "This was supposed to hold wizards?"

"Careful, Albus," Rose warned. "You don't know what they're using these cells for now."

"You worry about everything."

"With reason. Now, get away from there. We need to find Carina and Frieda and get out of here. I'd rather not bump into Jagobin today if at all possible and the longer we spend in here, the more likely that is."

"We can't split up," Scorpius said. "Not again. Rose and I barely managed to take out a single goblin."

"They're quicker than they look," Rose agreed.

"And stronger," he added, touching his neck. "Thing nearly strangled us."

Suddenly, the door to the cell beside Albus opened and Frieda walked out, blonde hair looking as if it hadn't been brushed in days and covered in dust. She paused when she saw the four, eyes bulging out of their sockets and mouths gaping open, and rolled her eyes.

"Five floors down in the old storage facility. Should be a snap to find," she said.

With that, she ran past the group and up the stairs.

Scorpius had only gained himself enough to shout, "HEY!" before she disappeared behind the door they had used to get down here. He looked around. "Should we go get her?"

"I really don't know," Albus said. "She seemed like she was trying to help us."

"Trying to help us, my arse. That girl's been nothing but trouble all this time. You think she's finally going to prove useful now?"

"Well, this would be when it most counts."

"It certainly counted before when she could've avoided this entire thing! What if that place is a trap waiting to be walked into?"

"He has a point," Rose agreed. "Frieda did cause this mess. It would be strange of her to change her tune so quickly."

"But why would she think we'd trust her?" Leo asked. "And where is she going?"

* * *

Frieda ran. The crowded streets of town were nothing she was unfamiliar with. She knew all about public transportation and the ways of muggles, but she'd never been to London before. Things were giant here. The more she tried to run, the more she encountered resistance from people milling about. She had to work fast. The instant Jacobin and his followers realized where she was headed, they would snatch her. She'd flown a broom here, but she couldn't go on that through muggle London. Everyone would see.

Frieda was shoved and pushed through a giant crowd of people, making her way down avenue after avenue until she reached the right street. She flew down the way, searching for the correct address, before she found it. Before her, a brick apartment building climbed into the sky. She ran up to the door and pressed the buzzer under the name _Wespurt._ She stood at the door, waiting for the click, but it didn't come. She poked her head about, wondering what she'd done wrong.

"Who is it?" a voice shouted down.

Frieda ran back down the stairs and gazed up at the woman in the second-story flat who was supposedly Leo's mother.

"Mrs. Wespurt?" she asked.

Her eyes widened. "Frieda?" she asked.

"Later. Let me in!"

The woman hesitated, but vanished back into the apartment and the door clicked. Frieda rushed inside and up the stairs to the Wespurts' flat, throwing the door open without a knock. She ran to the fireplace and grabbed a handful of floo powder from a bowl on the table beside the hearth.

"Frieda." She froze at the sound of Myra Wespurt's voice. "What are you doing?"

Frieda turned back to her, rage burning in the thirteen-year-old's eyes. "Fixing both of our mistakes. You know, because of you and your husband's cowardice, everyone's safety has been jeopardized, most of all your son's."

Myra Wespurt's face was calm and understanding. "Honey, we only didn't what we thought was best for—."

"You!" Frieda spat. "You did what was best for you and nobody else! Don't act innocent, like you did everything you could. You didn't do anything! You shoved me onto your friends and hid me in another country! You gave Leo a dangerous object that made him hate women! You're still not doing anything because you refuse to face the repercussions of your actions!" She backed into the fireplace and felt a shadow pass over her face from the hearth. "Say what you want about me, but at least I'm brave enough to admit when I'm wrong and face the penalty."

"Frieda!" Mrs. Wespurt ran to stop her, but she threw the floo into the ground and felt the green flames lap the outside of her body.

"Ministry of Magic!"

* * *

She emerged in a large stone fireplace, green flames vanishing from around her. Instantly, she ran out into the expansive hall of the Ministry of Magic, winter robes flying out behind her. It was filled with people and she had no idea where she was going. _Hm_. She stopped a man in diplomatic robes.

"Excuse me, Sir," she said. "Where can I find the auror department?"

"Why? Is there an emergency?"

"I'm just trying to find my father," she lied. Her father was obviously dead. She just didn't want to cause a stir for the entire Ministry of Magic.

The man told her how to locate the department and she sprinted through the Ministry without so much as casting a glance back at him, shedding her scarf and dropping it to the ground before she jumped on the elevator and hit the wall within it. The doors promptly closed and she grabbed the stitch in her side, panting and feeling the beat of her heart through her head.

"Merlin, I need to run more."

She straightened her spine and flipped her hair back, only then noticing there was another man in the elevator. Wearing auror robes.

"Well," she breathed scooping some blonde locks behind her ear. "Hello."

"What floor?" he asked.

"Yours," she said.

He nodded. "I could've guessed as much. What's it this time?"

The doors opened with a ding and she rushed into the middle of an office filled with cubicles and witches and wizards working dutifully on paperwork. She jumped onto a desk covered with papers.

"Hey!" a man protested.

"LISTEN UP! There is an emergency situation going on right now. We need as much help as we can get. My friends are in trouble. Please!"

"What's going on?" one of the men asked, standing and ready to move.

"It's goblins. There's a half-goblin named Jagobin."

"Jagobin?" the elevator man asked, walking towards her. "How do you know about Jagobin?"

"He kidnapped my friend."

"Why does he want your friend?"

"How should I know?" she lied. "She went to visit a friend at St. Mungo's and he was off with her! Now, my friends have run after her with hardly enough backup to fight off a stray raccoon. They're mostly Gryffindors, needless to say."

Several people in the office let out a collective groan.

"What are we going to do about another one?" a woman asked her coworker. "Jagobin's never taken children before."

"Don't just stand around talking! We need to go!" Frieda shouted.

"And do what?" the first man asked. "Look, kid, we've been trying to take down Jagobin's crime syndicate for years. The fact of the matter is he's slippery and has far too many goblins on his side for our department to handle. When we've finally found his weak spot, we can send him to Azkaban. For now, we'll have to file the missing report and find out what to do about your friend. We might be able to strike a deal with Jagobin."

"Not on this. He'll never release her. Not for any amount of public money. He loathes the Ministry and places too much value in my friend."

"What, exactly, did your friend do?"

"The same thing I did. She existed."

"I don't follow."

"It's hard to explain. I can't. Not now. Not here. The point is that the weak spot you've been looking for is here. I have it. My friends are already fighting Jagobin's henchmen. You have to help them."

"He has hundreds of goblins on his side," the woman mentioned. "We'll never be able to cut through that on such short notice."

"He has thirty-seven goblins working for him," she revealed. She'd broken into his office the night before and found the true number of employees he kept track of. Carina was right. There were barely any. She should've looked through his records years ago. She'd just never had the courage.

The wizard whose desk she was on scoffed. "So what if barely anyone works for him? He's a goblin who heads a goblin regime. Once other goblins learn we're attacking him, they'll freeze wizarding banking assets and run to help him."

"No, they won't!" Frieda denied. "Jagobin takes advantage of desperate goblins that have no family, money, or shelter. Most goblins don't agree with him at all. They're all rude, thieving prats, for sure, but they aren't murderers and kidnappers. There's a point where the line between differences in our species ends and we're the same. This is safe. This is an emergency. Follow me. Please. If you don't believe me, I have one of yours on my side, Michael Wespurt."

"How do you know all of this?"

"WHY DO I NEED TO EXPLAIN EVERYTHING TO YOU! MY FRIENDS ARE FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES!" she screamed. "If you're not going to help me, just mull over your bloody paperwork!"

She ran to the elevator, but stopped short of going in. Their only hope was the aurors. She turned back around.

"I am the only sibling to Jagobin and because of that I know more about him than all of your intelligence sources put together. I am telling you now; there are only fourteen goblins in that building, Jagobin included, and only five wizards to fight them. I worked for this man until an hour ago. His entire brand is an illusion. He is rich and powerful, no doubt, but the muscle is fabricated. He is a hundred-fold weaker than he lets on. If you help me, I will give you everything I know. Please will you help me?" The room was silent.


	30. Find Carina!

Chapter 30-Find Carina!

Scorpius, Leo, Albus, and Rose all walked through the lower levels of the prison. The floor was no longer cement, but dirt. They were underground. It was a place for the more dangerous of the prison's criminals. The walls had supports out of which levers stuck. Now and then, something would make a strange noise and the dirt around them would shutter and fall in mists.

"If you squeal one more time, I'm going to curse you," Scorpius threatened, glaring at Albus.

"I can't help it. It's terrifying in here."

"Then you shouldn't have come."

"She's probably not down this deep," Albus said. "I think we went a floor too far. Why don't we go back up to that floor from before? It had all of those empty cells with sketches of swear words in the walls. Remember that?"

"Rose, would you shut your cousin up?"

"Be quiet, both of you," she told them. "Whatever's making those noises, we'd better head away from it and I can't tell what rooms it's coming from with your talk—EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEHHHH"

The ground cracked and broke beneath her before she could finish. Scorpius watched as she was sucked into the black room beneath, her screams reverberating until a metallic clang echoed through the darkness under them.

"Rose!" Albus shouted.

The three boys ran to the hole to try and look down, but it was pitch black.

"I'm alright!" she shouted back up. "Find Carina! I'll get out of this!"

Leo looked up. "There's a split ahead. I'll go one way, and you two the other and search the cells. Hopefully we'll find someone."

"Deal," Scorpius and Albus said in unison.

Scorpius and Albus ran down the right hand hallway. There were dozens of cells, but every single one they looking in was empty.

"Carina!" Albus shouted. "Carina!"

"Shut up, you thick moron. This place is crawling with goblins. It's not like we aren't obvious enough as it is."

Albus stopped in front of an open door. "This cell has a chest in it."

"Shut up and search. If the hallway's—."

"You don't think that's weird?"

"What?"

"The chest. I mean, all the other cells are empty."

"Who cares?"

"Well, remember before how Frieda used a path Jagobin created to get to the surface and it was inside of a cell? What if the main hallways don't do anything? What if it's the other passages? This place is deserted, after all. What do you think is over there?"

"I don't know," Scorpius sighed. "Go look."

Albus looked back at the chest. "Will you look?"

"Me? It was your idea."

"But…I'm afraid."

Scorpius walked slowly up to Albus and sized him up, stretching out his back so he was several inches taller. The boy looked the other in the eyes.

"You've got more to fear of me than anything in that chest."

Albus sighed. "You know, all I was looking for was the magic word." He started walking towards the chest. "Is that so hard? Manners to an aristocrat should come easy."

Albus pointed his wand towards the lock on the chest.

" _Alohamora_ ," he said. The lock clicked open and he removed it. Carefully, he opened the crate so a squeaking noise filled the cell. Nothing happened.

"See, there," Scorpius said. "Nothing. What did I tell you?"

That's when a tiny human form came buzzing from the crate. Albus stood up as the tiny human cocked it head. Several more heads popped up out of the crate and slowly rose into the air, looking at the two boys.

"Albus get up," Scorpius told him. He walked into the room and grabbed the fifteen-year-old by the arm to haul him to his feet.

"What?" Albus asked. "They're just fairies."

"Those are not fairies," Scorpius told him. "They're doxies."

"Are those dangerous?" Albus asked.

Scorpius gave him a look. "Don't you listen in Care of Magical Creatures?"

"Of course I do! That is, of course, assuming I go to class."

"Doxies aren't deadly, but they pack a punch."

The group of tiny furry people began to zoom back and forth. More and more emerged from the case.

"They're protecting something," Albus realized. "I was right. There is something there!"

A doxy zoomed towards Scorpius and he slashed it with a spell. The tiny creature smashed against the wall and dropped motionless. It was the wrong more. Twenty more instantly came after them, diving towards every inch of skin he and Albus had. Scorpius was quick, though. He slashed at them with one spell after another, murdering, knocking out, and even burning them to a crisp.

Scorpius backed up slowly until his back hit something. It wasn't the wall. Albus's back was pressed to his as the other boy looked to the same threat around them.

"I got your back," Albus smiled, instantly lashing a curse at three doxies.

"Never thought I'd hear you say that," Scorpius muttered, stepping on a doxy at his feet and slicing another in half.

"Me neither," Albus agreed.

"By the way…we'll get Rose back. I know you're protective of your cousin."

"Rose can take care of herself. She's a grown woman who can make her own decisions and she has her own right to fight with us."

"That's…very progressive of you."

"Well, I'm a feminist now, you know."

"Honestly, after you ran down the hallways naked, shouting 'Down with the patriarchy,' I don't think there's a wizard alive who _doesn't_ know that. STUPIFY! PATRIFICUS TOTALUS! IMPEDIMENTA!" Several doxies fell motionless.

"You're angry with me. That actually wasn't my idea. It was my girlfriend's."

Scorpius scoffed.

"What was that?" Albus asked, kicking at the doxies in his frustration. They came towards him by the dozens, more and more coming from nowhere.

" _You_ have a girlfriend?" Scorpius said belittlingly through gritted teeth as he battered the doxies back with a shield charm. "Let me guess: she's double your intelligence and triple your maturity."

Albus paused after driving his doxies back with a ball of fire. "No…"

"You're despicable. You can't expect to have a real girlfriend until you stop acting like a child!"

"Acting like a child?" _Furnunculus_. "I'm fun to be around." _Confundus_. "I play jokes." _Avis_. "I have a good time" _Immobulus_ "unlike you and your constant negativity. I feel like a raincloud's hanging over us every time you're around."

"That is a description from a children's book. I'm sure of it."

The doxies were all on the ground, scores of them either dead or immobile. The two were panting and in a rage.

"Make fun all you want." Albus said as they turned to each other "You're just sour."

"Only because your existence makes my life miserable."

"Your own existence makes your life miserable! You're just jealous."

"You know what? I am jealous. I'm jealous because people love you for being the son of the Boy Who Lived and being able to have such a stupid attitude because of how easy you have it. Meanwhile, everyone hates me for being the son of Harry Potter's rival."

Albus rolled his eyes. "No one hates you because of what your father did. They hate you because you're nasty and horrible and a Slytherin to top it off!"

"You really believe that don't you? You really think the way I'm treated has nothing to do with my family being notorious death eaters. It's all because I'm cynical and sour. How do you think I got that way? Just in the last week, I got detention because you and your friends decided that I was just a convenient person to blame and the professors believed you because you've good families and you're Gryffindors."

Albus said nothing for a moment.

"That wasn't my idea—."

"It doesn't matter!" Scorpius shouted. "You and the rest of your friends are all actively screwing me over just because it's easy!"

"Just because it's easy? You gang up on me with your other Slytherin friends! You kick me around and make fun of me!"

"You deserve it. After all your family's done to us. With the way you act. People hate you, Albus. Every last Slytherin hates you."

"I'm not my father or anyone else in my family. Neither are you. I wish you could separate yourself from the war."

"Believe me, so do I. Here's a fun fact: I don't like dueling. I don't want to duel anyone, least of all you. I attack you so the rest of the Slytherins won't think I like you. I'm a prefect. I have some of the highest grades in the school. Do you really think I'd waste my time with you if I didn't need to?"

Albus paused, genuinely surprised. He'd never noticed the badge on Scorpius's robes. "You're a prefect?"

"You're not? What a surprise."

"Shut it, Scorpius. Why are you in Slytherin if you don't like it there?"

Scorpius waited to speak for minute, wondering if he should say.

 _Because I belong there. I've always hated your family for disgracing mine, yet I've never wanted the world my family would have created with Voldemort. I'm stuck in limbo and all that's left is to hate everything because there's nothing I'm allowed to favor._

"I didn't choose it; the sorting hat did."

Albus shook his head. "That's a bunch of‑-."

And he stopped and dropped to the ground.

"Albus?" Scorpius asked.

Albus pulled up his robes to reveal doxy bites at his ankles.

"I don't feel well," he breathed.

"You need an antidote," Scorpius said. "Doxy bites are toxic."

"Can we make one?"

"The ingredients aren't found on this continent, let alone this prison. We'll have to get you to St. Mungo's. I don't think we'll be able to get you out of here anytime soon. Not with the goblins and being five stories down."

"Tell my girlfriend she can have all the chocolate frog cards from my collection that she doesn't have yet. Also, tell my brother Albus that he's a git and he can't have my broom."

Scorpius rolled him eyes. "You're not _dying_ , moron. It's not lethal. I'll just go get help."

"No! Find Carina."

"What? You're kidding. I have no idea what this poison does. You could lose your feet for all I know."

"And what about everybody else risking their lives? Do you think I didn't know what I was getting into coming here? The more people we have to fight, the better. I'm not risking someone else's neck for my own. Besides, you're right. Nobody takes me seriously now. If we both make it out of here, you can finally tell people that you have a reason not to hate me. You can change things, Scorp. Just take advantage of this."

Scorpius didn't know what to say. Had he really gotten to Albus? He thought back to when he'd stuck that dirty toothbrush into Carina's mouth. _"I want you to remember that taste in your mouth when you realize you can't see through people."_ Maybe that didn't just apply to Carina.

"Then, I'm going to whatever room the doxies were guarding," he said. "In the chest."

"Also," Albus said, lying on the ground. "This could help me score serious points with my girlfriend."

"There it is," Scorpius said, standing and rolling his eyes. "I'm leaving, then. Good luck with that venom, Potter."

"Wait!"

Scorpius stopped.

"A kiss goodbye?"

Scorpius feigned kicking the boy between the legs and the young Potter squealed and rolled away.

Scorpius walked towards the chest, took a breath when he saw the ladder leading downwards, and stepped onto the first rung.

* * *

I stare straight ahead at the glaring eye of the beast before me. It breathes out and I feel its breath blow against me. The black hair that's fallen out of its clip, down around my ears and hairline, flies back, but our gazes do not part. I am bound to think I could press my palm over that emerald eye and only just cover its iris. That's how large this creature is.

Scales gimmer scarlet light across its body and golden spikes stick out around its snout. It only just fits in the cage they've given it. It's no dragon. A dragon would melt the cage around it with its fire. A dragon would not be captured in the first place. They are too powerful to be controlled by wizards, let alone goblins. No, it must've been illegally bred to be weaker. Why they have it here, I can't say.

It looks at me, watching me dangle from the wall. My arms hurt and I wonder what it'll do. I'm trapped. All around me is a circular wall. Then, something happens. The chain dangling the entire contraption in the center of everything drops the cage a meter and the beasts' giant eyes narrow to slits. It jumps, rattling the cage as its mouth opens wide. I let go just as a jet of flame bursts from its throat.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!" I scream as I fly downward. Suddenly, I'm scooped up by a pool of salty liquid and water invades my ears, eyes, and nose. My mouth was open, screaming as I fell, so the water rushes in and down through my throat. I wriggle there for a moment, staring at the faint blue light above me, and surface, coughing and sputtering, every inch of the tubes in my sinuses burning from the salt and infestation of water.

The noise is unbearable. The dragon screams and releases balls of fire, coloring the room red and heating it quickly. That's when I look for the vents along the walls. Sure enough, there are dozens. Too high for me to grab any, but that's not the point. The dragon was the alarm. It did take me a while to climb all of those crates. I'm at that same point in time as when the goblins ran from the room after Jagobin and I switched bodies.

That's when I hear someone. It's an echo. It's a voice, but I can't see a thing. The only light is coming from the glowing red bars of the cage and air vents. I pray the dragon doesn't aim his fire downward. I'd be cooked to a crisp without my wand.

For a moment, I see the glow of lighting from a _Lumos_ spell coming from atop the cage, but the cage drops again. I can only tell because the chain above clatters and the dragon shrieks again.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH!" someone screams. A splash sprays me with water and makes waves in the pool. Afraid of what it is, I swim towards a stalagmite and grip it. I might have been shivering from the cold, but the dragon's flame warms the rooms so I instead quiver from whatever's just dropped into the pool with me. I imagine a water demon or goblin, but instead, I see flame beneath the water. A face emerges from the mass and comes sputtering up for air, red hair slicked back against her head.

"Rose!" I exclaim. I get down from my rock and swim towards her. I am not the hugging type and we are both swimming, but I throw my arms around her anyway. When I pull away, she is still coughing up saltwater.

"Carina," she says. "What are you doing in here? I thought for sure you would be kept right next to Jagobin for whatever his plan was."

"I'll explain later," I promise her. "We need to figure out how we're to get out of here."

The cage drops another foot and the dragon unhinges its fire. It fills the cage with the inferno, the bars beating red like an iron heart as the beast pumps its blaze into the metal. He cooks the rock and water of the cavern like we are in some great oven. Something tiny drops into the water beside us. Considering this is an enclosed cavern, I do not think it is rain.

"The metal's melting off the cage," Rose says. "I have an uncle who deals with dragons spells like this. We broke the holding charm by coming into the room. It can get out once it melts the bars. What is it?"

I shake my head. "This is an enclosed cavern, right?" I ask her.

"Of course it's enclosed, Carina. We're five levels down!"

I give her a look. "Where did all this water come from?

Her panicked breathing quiets for a moment as she looks at me.

"It's going somewhere," she realized. She brings out her wand from her pocket.

"Ah…Rose…"

"It's alright," she assures me, grabbing my hand. "I can do it now. I know I can."

I nod and squeeze her hand right back as drops of liquid metal rain down around us. One catches at the back of my ear and I yelp. She brings the wand up to her face and closes her eyes.

"GUIDE ME!" she shouts, slashing her wand down through the water. A line forms from her wand and we shoot through the water like a golden snitch.


	31. A Cucumber!

Chapter 31-A Cucumber!

Patricia blew her hair out of her face and looked at her watch.

"They told us to wait a half hour before we sent anyone else," she said. "Time's passed. Let's head in."

"Fantastic," Dallen said. "You all go in. We'll just wait here."

Patricia frowned. "You're not coming? Jagobin might be the key to finding out what happened to Dallen Ruby and saving your reputation among the dwarves."

"Did you forget we're bein' hunted, lass?" Dallen asked.

"He's right," Sloane told her. "If you don't succeed in getting the Ministry involved, you'll have to scramble out of there with Carina, leaving Jagobin in nothing but a temper. If we're seen, Jagobin will just have two more things to try and capture. It's dangerous enough for us to be out in the open this way. If these gangsters discover we're here, we could be tortured into revealing the location of our clan or any number of dwarf secrets."

"Then why did you bother coming?"

"To see that bastard taken down!" Darius shouted.

George smirked. "And we will take him down."

"I'll go in the back way, you the front," Patricia told George, Lysander, and Nathan.

"Yourself?" Nathan asked.

"No one should be that far into the prison," she reasoned. "I'm only going to scope out the area and make sure Carina isn't there. You two should stay at the higher levels since that's probably where she is."

"Good luck," Luna Scamander told them. She was too weak to fight and Mr. Wespurt had returned to his formerly owl wife to make sure she didn't do anything rash. Or so he claimed.

Patricia ran along the side of the building and into a wooded area where the trees above her were nearly bare so every tree was a skeleton, bark bones she ran past until she reached a little stream. According to the blueprint notes, there was a lake that functioned as an emergency exit for prison staff in case of a mass breakout. The pond here connected to the bottom floor magically. Anyone trapped in the very last layers of the prison could go through the water tunnel and quickly end up outside.

She hurried along the tiny creek until she came to it. A little pond really no wider than your average front yard, complete with little dead reeds sticking up around the edges. She kicked off her trainers and stepped into the water, but immediately pulled her foot back out. Merlin, it was freezing! She couldn't do this slowly. She was cold, but she knew she couldn't have all these layers on and still swim. She stripped her woolen cloak and let it drop to the ground. She clutched her wand firmly in her hand and waved it over her face, casting a bubblehead charm. She took a few steps back, took a deep breath, feeling the freezing air join with her lungs, and dived into the water.

It was like someone had slathered a layer of paint down around her. It was colder than paint, but she felt the thickness press down over her eyes and leach a blue color into her skin so she could barely move her joints. Frozen. She pushed past it. She had to. She forced her arm forward and felt a tentacle of warmth wrap around her shoulder. Next arm. Pump. Next arm. Pump, pump, pumping her arms in a circle, moving barely anywhere. She kicked behind her and sunk further and further into the shallow lake. She warmed slowly, but by the time she reached the bottom, she had more control. She wrapped a creaky claw around a root in the ground and pulled herself forward. She grabbed another and another and another and another, pulling, pulling, pulling.

 _If this thing is impossible to find…_ she thought, but just as she did, a dark hole appeared in the misty blue waters. She paddled and pulled herself towards it, eventually gripping the edges of the hole and pulling herself through. She was in. From there, she just needed to grab the rocky interior of the prison's tunnel and make two rights and a left like in the plans.

She swam as fast as she could, kicking and yanking herself forward and pushing off the walls of the tunnel. After maybe five minutes of walking herself along the floor of the narrow channel, she turned the last corner and saw a glowing blue light. She pushed off and propelled towards it until she flipped out of the tunnel, water rushing into her ears. Light was all around her and she smiled, swimming to the surface where her bubblehead charm popped on contact with the air.

Like a frog's tongue darting to catch a fly, something snatched her ankle and pulled her back down into the mouth of the lake. It was so unexpected; water went into her mouth and nose. She looked down. A scaly hand was gripping her ankle. She yanked and yanked at it, but each time she pulled away, it gripped tighter. She took her wand and slashed down at the arm. It let go only to grab her other ankle with the opposite arm. This time circular, glowing fish eyes opened their translucent films to stare up at her. A face smiled. She kicked it with her other foot and swam to the surface to gulp down more air. She threw herself over the side of the pool of water, on the edge of a rocky ledge. It climbed up her legs and over onto her back, digging its claws into the fabric of her wet robes and the skin beneath.

"Incendio!"

The beast flew from her back, screaming, and Patricia looked up, confused. A boy with pale blonde hair and a rigid stance stood over her.

"Scorpius!" she exclaimed as he lent her a hand. She grabbed it and he hauled her out of the water. She shivered madly, looking him over and stepped back with her arms outstretched. "Help me, will you?"

He nodded and held his wand still before him so a tunnel of warm air blew her clothes dry. She tamed her puffed-out locks with a hair tie and nodded her thanks.

"This should be a freshwater pond," she said. "Why does it taste salty?"

"I don't know. Magic," Scorpius reasoned, paying the futile matter no mind.

She nodded, hating the burning in her lungs from the unexpected pull under. "So, what are you doing all the way down here?"

"We think they're keeping Carina in the lower layers of the prison."

A screeching sound filled the rocky room and they looked to see what looked like a monkey covered in scales standing dripping before them. He barred his razor teeth and sat back on his haunches, revealing a strange hollow at the top of his head where water splashed about.

Patricia smiled. "Amazing."

"What? What is it?"

"A kappa. I never thought I'd see one. Especially since they live in Japan. He's a water demon."

"A friendly water demon?"

"Depends on whether or not you like your blood to stay in your body. They feed on it."

"So we kill it."

"It has a XXXX rating on the Ministry of Magic danger classification. That's second highest."

"I know what the danger classifications are, Patricia. How do we defeat it?"

"Er…"

"Don't tell me you don't know?"

The monkey screeched and ran for Scorpius, jumping directly for his face before Patricia waved her wand and shouted, "Incendio!"

The kappa's scales were hardly even warmed by the fire spell. Why had it just worked when Scorpius did it? She tried another and another, but none of them took effect. Finally, she just ran over to Scorpius, still struggling to keep the thing off of him, and grabbed the kappa, yanking its tail as hard as she could. It screeched in pain and unhooked its claws from Scorpius's cloak to grab at her, but she swung the surprisingly heavy beast back into the pond and went to Scopius on the ground.

"Why is it attacking me?" Scorpius asked, grabbing his wand for the next assault.

"I don't know. You attacked it. You proved to be a bigger threat than I was."

"Fantastic," he said, getting to his feet.

"Whoever ran the prison must've put it there to guard the lake. It couldn't have gotten there itself. Kappas are from Japan. That's why the lake is saltwater. That's the only kind they live in. It must've been done on purpose."

The kappa jumped from the pond again, running predictably with full speed, on all fours, towards the older boy. Scorpius and Patricia shot dozens of offensive spells and curses at the creature, rainbow light flashing and lighting the dim room, but they did nothing. The Kappa was impossible. It was magically resistant.

It flew through the air and latched onto Scorpius's leg when he tried to kick it away.

"Patricia, I could really use some help here!" He clamped one hand around the head of the kappa and held it back while the other beat the creature as hard as it could from the strange angle it was at.

"I'm thinking! I'm think‑-Oh! I know! We need to give it a cucumber."

He looked at her incredulously "DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE A CUCUMBER?!"

"I was just trying to be helpful!"

"Well, be helpful with less stupid ideas."

She looked at the kappa and saw the water in the hollow bowl of its head splashing about as Scorpius beat the thing. Her eyes widened.

"Scorpius, the hollow!"

"What?" The monkey-like creature suddenly broke the boy's grip, the scales along its head sliding out from under Scorpius's fingers. Its head flew forward unhindered and the creature sunk its teeth into Scorpius's ankle.

"Scorpius!" she shouted. She ran to the kappa and grabbed it, pulling, yanking at its tail again, anything to make it let go. But the thing grew stronger by the minute and ignored everything she did. She lifted her hand and splashed it into his head hollow. A claw unlatched itself, slashed her across the chest, her nearest bit of skin, and reattached itself to Scorpius's leg before she could blink but once. She dropped back and crawled away. Bloody claw marks ran across her chest. Deep. She breathed, feeling the warm blood beat out of her chest and along the sides of her body, drenching her robes. She wanted to scream or faint, but she just breathed and tried to fight back the intense burning at the edge of her skin.

That's when she heard a splash behind her. She turned around to see two flying in mid-air over the pool before splashing back into it. Of all people, Rose and Carina were there, splashing about in the water. They quickly climbed out.

"What's happened?!" Rose asked as Patricia stood up. At least she could stand.

"There's a hollow in the kappa's head," Patricia said, foregoing the explanation of her chest. "When Scorpius first cast a fire charm over the kappa, he vaporized the water inside and it was powerless. We need to get the water out of it. That's it's only weakness. I'm sure of it."

"Do another fire charm or scoop it out."

"I tried. It won't let me get near it. We can't do the fire charm from afar either. You have to be right about its head or the fire won't be hot enough to vaporize it all."

Rose nodded and reached for her satchel of potions.

"Sorry about this Scorpius," she said.

Scorpius's already pale skin was now drained of all color. He groaned, lying on the ground.

Rose held a crimson potion bottle the size of her hand, stepped forward, and smashed it against the kappa's back. Surprisingly, it broke. Patricia watched as the liquid drained into the creature's scales and ran contrary to gravity, up its back. The kappa released its fangs from Scorpius's leg and the boy winced. Slowly, it let go of Scorp's leg and stumbled back towards the pond.

"Don't let it get into the water!" Patricia told them.

"Levicorpus." The kappa swung upside down and was lifted into the air, screaming angrily. The water in its head splashed to the ground uselessly and the creature soon calmed down. Scorpius was propped up on one elbow, holding his wand out towards the creature to keep it in the air.

"You can release him, Scorpius," Patricia said, holding her wand up. "I've got him."

Rose ran to Scorpius, but he waved her away. "I'm fine, woman. Give me some sugar and I'll be fine."

Patricia felt blood run down her stomach. She suddenly felt very hot. She wanted to take off her robes, but that would be horribly painful.

"Oh, Patricia!" Rose exclaimed. "I don't know any spells to slow the bleeding. Jump in the pond to clean it."

"Don't jump in the pond," Carina said instantly. "It isn't clean water. It won't clean your cut."

"What else do we do?" Rose asked.

"The next room over. What is it?"

"What next room over?" Scorpius asked, sitting himself up against the wall.

They watched as she walked slowly towards the wall, grabbed a seam in the rock and pulled until a crack formed and the rock door slid aside. She pointed.

"This one."

* * *

 **AN: Now, if you're wondering why Patricia didn't use Albus's guiding spell like Rose, remember she's only ever seen the spell used the way Albus did it which makes the spell out to merely point the wizard in the right direction. Patricia already knows the way, so this spell isn't necessary for her. Rose's wand functions (or shall we say _mal_ functions) differently as we have seen. Yes, she has realized what's causing this, but for the sake of efficiency in retreating from a dragon, she's reverting to her old ways.**


	32. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

Chapter 32-Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them All in One Place

Scorpius laid against the ground, his head beating with his heart. He groaned and rolled onto his side to look at what they were all staring at, but his vision was blurred. The bite marks in his ankle beat through his eyes so every time he blinked, the world pulsated. He squinted and forced his eyes to adjust past it until he saw a rectangular hole in the stone wall that he knew hadn't been there before.

"I don't believe it," Patricia's voice said. It echoed from the walls of the next room over.

"What is it?" Scorpius asked, grabbing his head to try and steady it as he eased himself to a sitting position.

"You've just got to see this!"

Scorpius felt an arm at his side and realized that it was Rose, helping to pull him to his feet. _One foot in front of the other_ , he told himself. As he began moving, the feeling of his entire body pounding like a drum subsided. The kappa hadn't taken much blood from him. It was more the pain of the bite at his ankle that made him dizzy. No doubt, Patricia was losing more blood than he had with the gashes in her chest.

He gripped Rose's arm and could feel her own heart beating from being so close to her. The out-of-sync heartbeat made him forget his own. _One foot in front of the other._

He then saw the stone wall passing by him in his peripheral vision and he looked up to gaze at the room behind the wall.

"Merlin," he breathed.

Patricia was sitting on the ground in front of him, blood dripping from her chest into a puddle on the floor. She gazed out into the vastness of what was before them. The room was massive. It was as tall as a ring on the Quidditch pitch at Hogwarts and massively wide. And that wasn't the most magnificent thing about it.

"I'd be excited if I wasn't about to faint," Patricia told them. She fell back onto the ground. Her chest was drenched in blood. Just seeing it forced Scorpius to his knees. He had to keep breathing to prevent passing out. He clenched his eyes like fists. _Don't faint, don't faint._ Not in front of everyone. He heard Rose's breathing beside him and tried to match his with hers. He took air into his lungs and pressed it back into the cool cavern.

"I've never seen so many magical creatures in one place in my life," Rose said beside him. "Not even at the Ministry."

Scorpius opened his eyes once more. End to end were magical animals. Cages hung from hooks high in the walls where strange furry creatures squawked. Others roamed free, flying about or jabbering nonsense as they rolled along the floor or scurried from here to there, all with bands tightened around some body part: an arm, a neck, a tail. A bird with bright pink plumage sat on a swing near them, coking its head. One of these bands was tightened down around its beak. Scorpius squinted his eyes and thought he saw runes scrawled along it.

"Don't take it off," Carina warned him. She surprised him and he fell back against Rose. The girl was standing in the shadows with her arm out, holding some creature he couldn't see.

"I was going to!" he spat. "I'm not stupid. Besides, do I look like I'd touch another damn animal after the last one took a bite out of my leg?"

She ignored him and stepped into the torchlight, revealing a creature he definitely knew. It was a phoenix.

"Phoenixes have healing tears," Rose said, smiling. "It can help Patricia."

"And why would it help us?" Scorpius asked. "It doesn't know a thing about us. It couldn't care less if Patricia dies."

Carina's inky eyes sparkled before she looked over at the giant bird. Scorpius couldn't fathom how she managed to hold it. The creature towered far over her head. It was the very length of her torso with giant, bulging wings that glowed red like lava. It puffed out its chest and wrapped the four fingers of its elongated claws around her arm. It should have been cutting off all circulation in her arm. She should have dropped it. Her arm, at the very least, should have been shaking under the creature's weight with blood dripping down from the scratches of its talons. But Carina made the occupation look effortless. It hunched itself so it could get a better look at her dark complexion and cold eyes.

She licked her thumb, reached a hand over, and pinched the band around the bird's claw. It poked its head about as she rubbed the ink until it smeared. She smiled and pulled her hand away. Not an instant later, the bird had torn the band off of its claw.

"I think he'll help us," she said. "Because he knows we'll help him."

The phoenix opened its wings. The span of them was so wide; Carina had to duck her head down, grinning as she did. It took off, gliding down until it landed at Patricia's side.

Patricia's eyes widened as she watched the bird lean its head over her and drop steaming tears down onto her chest. She clenched her teeth and squealed each time a droplet of water seared into her skin. Her hands dug into the dirt floor of the massive cave and the dust filed out through the spaces into her fingers.

The phoenix pulled at her robes, picking them up and dropping them against her body.

"Stop it! That hurts!" Patricia scolded it.

The bird squawked, leaned down, and nipped her fingers.

"Ouch!" she yelped. "What was that for?"

It grabbed her clothes and pulled at them once more.

"Hey, what's he doing?" she asked.

Carina patiently walked over and kneeled beside Patricia, she took the robes by her neck in her hands and tore the front of Patricia's outfit so her bare chest was exposed and the gashes were visible beneath the layer of blood coating her skin and bra.

Carina stood back up as the phoenix continued its work unimpeded by clothing.

"How do you know so much about phoenixes?" Scorpius asked.

Carina shrugged. "I don't know a thing about them, but he certainly seems to know enough about me." She watched as the phoenix scooped the air around them into its wings and flew to the nearest cage to rest atop of it while peering down at the group of four below.

Patricia sat up and touched her chest unbelievingly. Everywhere, the dried blood stuck to her, save the four slices in her skin which were clean and white as if they'd been soaked in salt water. In a way, they had. Her fingers ran carefully along the tender gashes that had all but closed. The giant tares along her breasts were now just long, skinny cuts.

"Merlin," she breathed, "I was healed by a phoenix. I was healed by a _phoenix_! This is the best day of my life!"

"Touch wood," Scorpius warned her. "The day's not out yet."

As if beckoning danger with the comment, something crashed above.

The group looked to the ceiling apprehensively.

"That didn't sound good," Patricia said.

Footsteps echoed along the insides of the walls above them. First, a singular pair and then more and more and more. Far too many to just be their companions. Carina and Rose rushed to the door to close the stone entrance so no one would know they'd entered. The torchlight from the other room was gone and the children were bathed in darkness as the sounds of fantastic beasts screamed about them.

Soon, the sounds of footsteps turned to voices, lots of voices. They were naturally rough and cruel voices that creaked through the walls. The four wizards brought themselves further into the cave, albeit slowly. They, after all, had no idea what sort of creatures were about.

That's when the stone door opened. The torchlight from the next room over spilled into the cavern for a several meters, but stopped before reaching the children. Stout silhouettes stood in the doorway. Someone was pushed to the ground, but they could see nothing. A hand reached out in the darkness and touched the wall. Unintelligible words echoed through the cavern and symbols began to glow blue. Giant symbols. Symbols the size of car tires glowed like gems in the walls and all were illuminated in the color of cobalt.

Jagobin walked into the room. His followers were behind him. Many more than seven now emerged. At least twenty entered the room.

"Release them," he ordered.

The goblins parted. Albus was thrown to the ground and Leo stumbled into the room.

"Leo!" Carina smiled. She ran to him and pulled him into a hug. "Oh, you're not dead! I'm so happy! I'm so happy you're not dead!"

Leo tentatively put his arms around her back and squeezed her in return. "Rather happy about that myself," he admitted.

Suddenly, she pulled away and looked him over. "He didn't kill you," she said. She looked back to Jagobin, her hand still on Leo's shoulder. She was wet from head to toe, her usually controlled hair completely unruly. It had started to frizz and kink. "Why didn't you kill him?"

"They just got me in the next room over," Leo told her. "Don't let their confidence fool you. I had them running about this place like lemmings. Albus was unconscious on the ground when I got to him. This wasn't their doing at all. They're weaker than us."

Jagobin laughed. "Weaker than you? We're not the ones backed into a corner."

Leo looked around the room, confused. As he walked back, he bumped a cage and a ferret creature started swearing at him.

"Is this how you do it?" he asked them. "Is this it? You've been selling magical creatures on the black market? No, better. You've been breeding magical creatures and selling their dangerous and sterile offspring, breaking countless laws put in place to protect wizards." He shook his head. "And now what? What'll you do with us? Even if you do get the Pearl, I doubt the wizarding world will be too thrilled to hear that Harry Potter's son was kidnapped by you. Whoever's covering for you at the Ministry will be of no use once this all gets out." He stepped towards him. "And it will get out. It isn't just us who know. I've written an article that'll go into press tomorrow at my newspaper and all of Hogwarts will know every detail of your dealings."

"Leo," Carina said.

He turned back to her. "Nothing on you," he assured her. She walked forward and gripped his hand.

Jagobin stood there without a word on his tongue. He had gone from having complete control to none at all. He held their lives in his hands, yet he did nothing.

Patricia had crawled over to where Albus laid and turned him onto his back.

"Albus," she whispered, stroking his neck. "You can wake up now."

"You're Albus's girlfriend?!" Scorpius suddenly shouted. " _You?_ Honestly, Patricia, I didn't think you were that desperate."

She turned back to face Scorpius.

"For your information, I'm dating Albus because he's fun and smart and I like him. You can sod off, Scorpius."

Patricia leaned over Albus, his head in her hands, and pressed her lips into his.

Jagobin calmly whispered to a goblin beside him who nodded.

"And the girl you caught? Shall we take her?"

He pondered. "Has anything ever escaped this room?" he asked.

"No creature nor prisoner," the goblin replied in his terrible scratchy voice.

"Then leave her until we have our next move planned."

Then, the goblins turned and left, walking back out through the door they had entered. Jagobin bowed his head as the door was shut.

"That's stupid; there's no lock," Scorpius said.

That's when the edges of the stone door melded and sealed to the wall so the door vanished and all that surrounded them was escapeless cavern wall.

Patricia looked back at him. "You just had to open your big mouth, didn't you?"

Rose took out her wand and pointed it at Albus to wake him up.

"Rennervate," she said. Nothing. "Am I not doing it right?" she asked, smacking the stick against her leg. "Rennervate," she tried again.

"It isn't you," Patricia sighed, her own wand out. "It must be the runes. They can bar magic just like the charms at Hogwarts bar apparition. It must be because of the magical animals they don't want escaping. There's no reason to put them anywhere else."

"So, we're stuck."

Without the goblins, the glowing runes suddenly flashed off so the group sat in darkness. No wands to light anything. They were silent for a moment.

Patricia clicked her tongue. "I don't suppose anyone has a match?"

Scorpius rolled his eyes. "You and Albus belong together."

"What? What is that supposed to mean?"

"Who would carry a match with them?"

"Into an abandoned prison? Hm. I wonder."

"We have wands! What good are matches?"

"They'd be some good now," she muttered.

"I suppose," Scorpius said, "now's as good a time as any, wouldn't you say?" The dark room gave no reply. "The Living Pearl," he clarified. "It's time to give it to its rightful owner."

"That's right," Carina's voice agreed. "How could I have forgotten?"

He removed his winter cloak and lifted a bottle from a pocket within. He then handed the cloak to the bare-chested Patricia who thankfully covered herself.

"What's in the bottle?" Leo asked as Scorpius handed it to him.

"If I'm not mistaken," Rose jumped in. "I believe it's the potion I was _going_ to use to make my wand."

"I'm sorry, Rose," Carina apologized.

"For what? I don't much need it now."

"But I manipulated you into making it for me."

"Yeah. Just ask next time, alright?"

"Just to be clear. You want me to drink this?" Leo asked.

"Hopefully it works," Carina said.

The group looked her spot in the darkness all at once.

"I'm sorry, but you don't know if this is going to work?" Scorpius asked her. "We are steaking our lives on this."

"According to written record, not even Baxg himself knew how to remove it. There is no soul alive who does. The Pearl's advice is our only hope. Leo, drink it."

Leo looked down at the bottle, but all he saw was black. He could only feel its contours. He popped the plug and proceeded to chug the contents.

"Drink it all!" Carina commanded. "All of it! You need to completely envelop the Pearl in liquid and we've only one shot."

"But the Pearl's in his naval I thought," Rose said.

"It is," Carina said. "But the potion should leak through his internal organs and find the Living Pearl. From there…I don't know what happens."

"Comforting," Scorpius said sarcastically.

Leo took the bottle from his lips and breathed heavily, looking about.

"So?" Rose asked. "Do you feel any different?"

"No," Leo said. As he did, his body began to glow. The brightest of colors spread across his skin and radiated light. "What? Why are you staring at me like that?"

"Well," Scorpius sighed. "You've either killed him or turned him into a tropical fish."

"What are you talking about?" Leo looked at his arms. His face fluctuation from surprise to confusion to fear to pure happiness. He grinned and started laughing. "I don't believe it. Look, I'm a wand!"

"Leo, is anything happening with the Pearl?" Rose asked.

He touched his bellybutton and shook his head. Then, he knitted his eyebrows and closed his eyes, covering his mouth with his hand. The lights making his skin glow vanished and they were once again dipped in darkness.

"Leo?" Rose asked.

He took his hand away from his mouth and a shimmering white ball sat in his hands. It sent out waves of white light that lit the room for at least five meters' radius around them.

Leo looked over at Carina.

"I believe this belongs to you," he said. But before he could hand it to her, the ground rumbled. Carina fell into Leo as everything shifted and the Pearl dropped to the ground. A scream sliced through the atmosphere and echoed down through the air vents.

Rose looked up at Carina. "Is that?"

"The dragon."


	33. Demolition

Chapter 33-Demolition

Frieda was walking diligently, glancing over her shoulder from time to time to make sure that the crowd of Ministry employees was able to follow her. That is, she had been. When she heard the scream and the ground rumbled beneath them, she froze in her tracks.

"The dragon," she whispered. And then she bolted. She ran through the hallways without taking care to see if the rest followed her. She knew the entire place well enough, from all the secret exits and passageways she'd been shown by her half-brother over the years, to get to the bottom floor in minutes. If she went fast enough. It wasn't until she opened a cell door one floor beneath that she realized several aurers were keeping up quite well. They tried to stop her before she hushed them and said to follow her or it would take a good hour to reach the lower levels.

As she ran, the dragon screeched again and the building shook enough so she fell into a wall and crashed into…a human.

"George!" she said. "I don't believe it! Never did I think I'd be so glad to see you and Nathan! C'mon!" All of this escaped her lips before George could even open her mouth and the quick-footed aurers passed by before she could mutter a syllable of protest.

"I say we follow," Nathan suggested as they'd been stalking the place for a good chunk of time without encountering a soul. He bolted after the group, George's fingers in hand, and she hadn't much of a choice as to whether she would follow or not for he tugged her along so forcefully, she had but to sprint.

"Say," she started, "I don't suppose you know what—"

The building shuddered about them and banged. Cracks opened in the walls. A scream filled the building.

"Yes, that," George huffed as they stopped a moment. "What is _that_ , exactly?"

"An illegally bred dragon. A Chinese Fireball was grown in a decaying cat's carcass in the center of a lagoon, then spelled." She ran on and the rest of them had no choice but to follow her down further and further into the prison, turning corners, running down hallways and stepladders and into doorways that had no business being in their respective locations. She ran as the screams became louder. She ran until she opened a door and stood face-to-face with Jagobin.

His face. How to describe his face? Her only family. He'd taken her in and here she'd betrayed him. A part of her heart felt regret. Her secret. All of this was rising like wisps of burnt paper from a fire. She smelled smoke as the threshold she stood beneath shook and rumbled.

"Hello, brother," she said at last.

The aurers were visible behind her, as were George and Nathan. She felt like a traitor. Merlin, what a traitor she was. Jagobin was her family. _Family that is trying to take the only people you care about_ , she told herself. _Family that hates the very sight of you, the very person you are._ What did it matter? Abandon her own selfish wants of having secrets and being important and what was there? Hate. Jagobin was a murderer. He treated her like dirt. He treated all like dirt and tore lives apart for power. He wanted to kill her cousin and take something rightfully belonged to the Sun Slave. He deserved to see everything about him crumble.

"You are no sister of mine," his vile voice intoned.

"May I have that in writing?" she asked. "Before you go to Azkaban, that is."

He snatched her throat, but the aurors' had their wands out in seconds. He released her and she dropped to the ground before him, already breathless. How goblins had such strength, she could not know. She could still feel his claws pressed into her skin, though they'd been there for no longer than a second.

The aurors came out and surrounded him in the hallway. He was alone. Why was he alone? He would do nothing so stupid when there was a break-in.

"Where are the goblins?" she asked him, standing. "Where are they?!"

He said nothing.

"They're about," she warned the aurors. "It must be to do with the dragon and I imagine that's connected to my friends."

The building rumbled and they all lost balance for a moment, bracing themselves against the wall.

"I don't understand," she said. "How did the dragon get free? He was in a secured room. The only way to break the charm was through entering the room and all the air vents were sealed…" A picture of her smashing the window in Carina's room with a spell came to mind. No, no, no. It was all her fault. _She'd_ broken the charm. It wasn't like she'd had a choice, but she should've been more careful. This was a dragon, after all. "Listen, everyone," she shouted over the screaming of the giant creature. "The cavern should be able to hold the dragon for a few more hours. We have time to get everyone before it cracks the walls. It's very far down. It shouldn't be able to escape the prison."

The passageway around them shook and a crack jolted into the ground between her and the rest of them. One of the aurors reached out and yanked her back to their side of the crack before the other half of the passage fell away and a giant hole was battered into the prison. The dragon swept the stone floors away with its tail like a broom and roared before them. The prison had been hollowed out. Three stories' worth of building sank far below them. It was as if the prison was a bash cake and a fist had gone through the center of it, cracking the layers.

The dragon flew about within the giant hole, spraying fire and crashing its tail against the inner walls of the prison. Other winged animals soared about it as sure-footed creatures scampered up the walls. Far below, Frieda saw several bodies, scrambling about the ground. Albus, Patricia, Leo, Scorpius, Carina! What on Earth were they doing? It was as if they'd all simultaneously lost their glasses and were patting about the ground to look for them. The tricky thing there is none of them wore glasses.

That's when she noticed. The goblins were all about, running to a fro, desperately trying to capture the animals flying about.

Frieda spun to face Jagobin. "So that's it. You've left them to collect all of your beasts. You coward! You'd leave your own kind?"

"MY KIND?!" he shouted. "I AM OF NO KIND! I AM MY OWN KIND! I NEED NONE OF THEM!"

Frieda turned back as more and more aurors ran into the hallway. It was no use, though. They couldn't go forward. All of the passages and many of the regular stairwells were destroyed. She could just watch her friends below dodge falling debris as they scrambled about the ground. Suddenly, Albus stood in triumph, his hand glowing bright white light past the red of the dragon's fire. Then, a bird swooped down over his hand and the bright light left him. They ran after it frantically before Leo jumped for the giant avifauna and grabbed its talons. The giant bird soared up two levels before it dropped him a level below. He hung from the edge of a floor before the ceiling there crumbled and he dropped to the ground, unmoving.

Carina screamed and ran to him, pulling at piles of stone frantically to uncover him. The rest of them ran and levitated rocks off of the boy.

Frieda looked up at the bird that had taken what Albus had been holding. Its claw glimmered with power.

"The Pearl," she said. "It has to be the Living Pearl."

She looked down at Carina staring helplessly at the others removing the rocks from Leo. Jagobin had taken her wand. She sighed and lifted her wand. "Merlin, I hope this makes up for my transgressions." She pointed her wand directly at Carina. "Wingardium Leviosa!"

Her Hufflepuff friend, always diving towards the ground off of the roof rather than ever seeming to go away from it, lifted her feet off of the ground and began to float upwards.

"What are you doing?!" an auror shouted. "You could kill her! What if the dragon smacks her?!" And, indeed, the dragon in that moment threw itself into the side of the prison, exponentially widening the hole in the building. Dust flew all around them and clogged the air. Frieda could barely see what she pointed at. Still, she carried on with her spell. It was far too late to go back.

Carina didn't even look at Frieda. She didn't need to register a thing. She embraced the spell like she was born to fly and chased after the bird in flight. Frieda did her best to stare through the dust and smoke at the shadows soaring about the hollowed-out prison. She suddenly came near and into view. Carina's hands were tightened down around the talons of the bird as she squirmed about. She was forced to let go, but Frieda held her aloft and ran her friend into the giant thing. It screeched and tore at her face and the arms she used to shield it. Finally, she grabbed its closed claw and crushed it in her hand. Frieda saw the shimmering light drop and one of the shadows dive to grab it. And she did.

Carina hung in mid-air within a ball of light emanating from the Pearl. She emptied the glowing pearl down her throat. For a split second, darkness surrounded her. It surrounded them all as the thing providing so much light in the darkness of the enormous cavern vanished. Then, the light came back on in a glow that echoed out in oscillations of white florescence that undulated around her body. The Sun Slave glowed like a crystal.

The dragon then smashed with all its might into the ceiling and the prison crumbled under the watchful eye of daylight.


	34. The End

Chapter 34-The End

I sit outside of the hospital wing with my chin resting against my knees, my feet on the edge of the seat of my chair. Merlin. I cannot decide if I am in love with the life I own now or if I hate every inch of it. I hate this feeling of worry. I've never had it before. It's rooted itself deep within my chest. When I saw Leo fall like a rag doll with stones raining over top of him, those roots tightened around my heart as if they were feeding from my blood. Selfish roots. I hate them.

I look at the hospital wing doors as I wait for them to open. I think this is fear. I don't like it. I wish to hide back in my room far in the dungeons where I am comfortable. I think back to when I spent all of my time drawing intricate sketches of animals and sigh. I cannot. I could if I wanted to. With the power of the Living Pearl within me, I could vanish from all their minds at a moment's notice. But I cannot. I have tasted humanity. I wish to keep it on my tongue for any other flavor in the world would be loneliness now that I know it. I hate it and I love it.

I hear mumbling within the wing. I don't mean to snoop, but I hear Leo and Jeremy's voices through the door.

"Is it just my bad ear or did you just admit that women aren't incarnations of Voldemort?" Jeremy's voice jokes.

"Don't mention my dark period," Leo says. His voice sounds tired. I don't like it. It makes the roots inside of me feel tight like my heart is wearing a sock that is a size too small for it.

Jeremy's voice comes through and I can imagine that face he makes sometimes where he scrunches up his eyebrows and tips his head. I smile thinking of it. "I didn't know it had ended," he says.

"You were the first one I told about my mother," Leo says. I can only assume this means her disappearance. "You above all people should know it's her I've been angry about. I feel stupid for not seeing it before. The Living Pearl only made me take my anger out by hating everyone. Otherwise, none of it would've happened. That's it's catch for me. It took my greatest folly at the time and exaggerated it so I made a fool of myself."

"You're not the first one to take your anger towards your mother out on other women. It's a particularly common attribute of muggle serial killers."

"I hate you. I wish I wasn't sore from head to foot. I'd cast a bat bogey."

I knock. Once. They're up, so it should be fine to enter. I open the door and walk inside to see them bandaged all over. Albus and Patricia were healed in a snap. Scorpius still lies in bed, snoring. Lorcan was never injured, but he was in a dizzy state after all that happened and he was placed in the hospital wing as well. He lays on his stomach on the bed to the left of Jeremy. I walk towards them.

"Carina," Jeremy greets me, sitting up in bed. Leo says nothing. His eyes are still fluttering and soon close. I draw near to watch his chest rise and fall. "He keeps doing that," Jeremy says. "Waking up for a few minutes and drifting off again. It must be what they've given him to help recover."

I kick off my shoes and sit crisscrossed on Jeremy's bed. I stare back at Leo and sigh.

"What?" Jeremy asks.

"It's just...I've been thinking."

"Oh, thinking. I see. That's always brewing problems. What about?"

I trace my hand along the outside of the bed and look up at him.

"Do you remember when we were talking about how Leo is a mystery box and does not let on who he truly cares for?"

"It was only yesterday, Carina."

"I know, but...I never thought to wonder about my own relationships. You know, when I talked to Frieda when I was captured, she thought we were good friends, but I've never thought of her as such in the three years I've known her. I still don't. We have the wrong perception of where we are together just as Leo does with his friends."

"Leo is too friendly with everyone and you are friendly with no one. Both extremes cause you to alienate people and that's where you two are alike."

I narrow my eyes. "How can you read my mind?"

He shrugs. "Maybe your powers are rubbing off on me and I'm becoming psychic."

I laugh. "The very thought."

"You were as strange then as you are now, Carina."

"And that's why I'm worried that my relationship with Leo is one-sided. How could I think such things? Yet I cannot stop. Maybe strange creatures are crawling into my head and laying eggs there. Making me paranoid."

He pushes my shoulder. "Carina, you're a nutter."

"And you like me anyway," I declare. For me, it is a bold thing to say, but Jeremy just grins.

"Hey, you like me, right?"

I smile and look into his eyes. "How can you wonder such things?" I fit myself into his arms and lay there for a long while, thinking of nothing but how warm he feels compared to the outside elements.

"What happened with Jagobin?" he asks as I pull away. "I've just woke up, you know, and Leo's been a mumbling mess. He hasn't told me a thing."

"Jagobin's minions were arrested and handed into the proper goblin authorities. Jagobin himself, though, will probably land in Azkaban. The Ministry doesn't trust the goblin authorities enough to leave him in their hands."

"For good reason," Jeremy tells me. "Goblins are relatively easy on their own kind when the crime isn't large and they've always hated the Ministry's trading restrictions. I wouldn't be surprised if all of those goblins got off with no more than a slap on the wrist."

"What does it matter? They won't be able to do a thing without Jagobin to organize it all. He was a mastermind and now he's waiting for his hearing before the Wizengamot."

"What about his funds?"

"They were all in the banks run by goblins. When Jagobin's minions were turned in and processed, their bank accounts were drained to pay for their prison sentences, as per their code."

"And Jagobin's money?"

"When Frieda looked through Jagobin's files to find out who all of the goblins that worked for him were, she took them all with her, including his financials. They have all of his fake names and alternate accounts. It's likely he has more, but they're safety nets that probably don't have much in them. His money will be taken, though now that he's in the Ministry's custody, it's anyone's guess what they'll do with it."

"How is Frieda?"

I sigh. "I think she's forgiven. She saved my life. She saved all our lives. If she hadn't come with the aurors, who knows what could've happened? Jagobin might've managed to capture us, what with how vulnerable we were, and hold us for ransom somewhere. He might've even been able to recover most of his valuables. The animals are all with the Ministry now. At least, the ones that didn't escape are. The dragon is long gone."

"I can't believe I missed it. Next time, do me a favor and don't put me in the hospital wing before a battle."

"What? I had nothing to do with this."

"Yeah, well, tell that to Leo. He seems to be convinced you're a kind of magic beyond what you've told us."

I bite my lip. They don't know everything about me, but I prefer it that way. Secrecy helps me feel secure.

"Maybe one day," I tell him. "I'll tell you how my magic works."

"The sun, isn't it? It controls you."

I shake my head, covering my bellybutton with my hand. "The sun doesn't control me as it once did. This curse..."

"You've beaten it back?"

I shake my head. "It's more like an arm wrestle. Constantly, I'm struggling against it, but its better this way. I feel like muscles inside of me are growing. The more I wrestle it, the more my will grows."

I don't tell him that if I don't fight the curse, everyone will forget me again. I don't know how I know, but I do. It would be so easy to be enslaved once more and let them all forget about me. Even Leo would only remember me as well as Frieda ever did.

"So, the Pearl…"

"Is gone," I say, shrugging. He watches me take my hand away from my stomach. "A bird flew off with it."

"At least, that's what you told the Ministry."

" _That_ is what happened. Really and honest truly." I stare into his eyes as I say it and I get the feeling he wants to reach out and feel my navel or at least the round ball sitting beneath it. A shiver runs through me when I think of his hand on my skin.

He touches my arm and I feel the pressure of his finger through the fabric of my cloak. A scene flashes in my mind of sitting alone at the Hufflepuff table in the Great Hall, invisible to all, as I watch him across the way with his friends. A jealous flame burns inside of me. I get up from the bed, anxious, and look at him.

"You abandoned me."

He shakes his head. "Sorry? What are you talking about? I-."

"Shut it, Jeremy. If I don't get it out now, I never will. All those years, we were best friends. Then, we came to Hogwarts and you forgot about me completely."

He squints his eyes and sits up straighter in his bed. "What? So everyone else gets a free pass, but I was supposed to somehow be immune to your curse?"

"Third year, Jeremy! I had already been to Hogwarts two years before it all happened. You forgot about me long before this curse."

He stares at me hard in the eyes and nods a bit.

"Yeah, for a while, I didn't remember you at all in first or second year, but it's started to come back since I was hit at St. Mungo's. Don't try and blame this on me. We were sorted into different houses. Yeah, I was making a lot of new friends, but I assumed you were too."

"Because I've always been so good at that," I quip.

"There are so many people in this school who have quirks and who you could fit in and talk with better than me. I don't exactly remember you ever trying to come and talk to me."

"How could I? You and Leo instantly became attached at the hip. You were so enthralled with him and his friends. You were sipping in every bit of this school. Don't try and put it on me to try and make friends with the people you like just because I haven't any of my own."

"What else did you have to do? Meditate in the grass?"

"Just because I don't spend my time the same way you do does not mean that it isn't worthwhile. I have my own life and just because it doesn't meet the same set of standards as your own does not mean that I'm pathetic and need to be more like you!"

"I never said you did!" he shouts, getting out of his bed to stand before me. At the loud burst of sound, I look out over the sleeping patients. No one's woken up, though part of me is sure at least one person is faking sleep to listen to us.

"Carina," Jeremy says, lowering his voice again. "All I'm trying to say is that it wasn't solely my fault that we lost our friendship. We're such different people. We were friends because we both believe in the same values. We love our families and friends and would do anything for them, but we also fight for what we want. When we were little and came to Hogwarts, it was just easier to find people who were just like us and forget all about that. Me with the Gryffindors and you with yourself. Don't think that I abandoned you. That's so one-sided. Don't you ever for a moment wonder if I felt the same way?"

"What? How could you? You had so many friends."

"But before Hogwarts I used to be the only kid around and I was always vying for your attention because I wanted someone to play with. You were always alone and you reveled in the silence of the forest. I had to work to keep you from going away."

I paused. "So you think that I didn't like you at all? You think I just stopped talking to you because I didn't care if we were friends anymore?"

"Why are you smiling? You like that I felt that way?"

"No, no, it's not—I'm sorry, I just…I thought that the only reason you wanted to be around me was because I was the only kid around for you to play with. That's why I used to act so disinterested."

We look at each other and he starts nodding as I'm smiling and I suddenly feel myself in his arms. I pull myself against him and don't feel nearly so worried. Maybe it's because I've been reminded that I'm not the only one on this Earth who feels. Sometimes I forget that.

I don't want this moment to end. My arms are over his broad shoulders and his hands press against my back.

"DON'T WORRY! WE'RE HERE!"

We break apart so quickly, Jeremy trips over his bed and falls back into it.

Albus runs through the hospital wing and stares down at Leo.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he shouts. "LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You were so young!"

"He isn't dead," I say, confused by his antics.

"I think he's aware," Jeremy informs me, watching Albus fall to his knees before the hospital bed.

"LEO! WHY?!"

Leo cracks his eyes. "What are you on about, Albus?"

"LEO!" Ablus shouts, jumping to his feet, elated. "HE LIVES! This calls for a song!"

Albus begins to sing as everyone who'd been with us through our adventure fighting Jagobin trickles into the hospital wing.

"Somebody shut him up," Scorpius groans, his voice muffled by the pillow over his head.

"Oh, poor Scorpius," Patricia mocks, sitting on his bedside, "only got an entire day to sleep."

"Count yourself lucky," George says, in the process of filling her mouth with potatoes. "We spent hours at the Ministry sorting everything out. Lucky Frieda had all those documents."

Frieda sits beside me and offers me a plate of food which I take, but Jeremy immediately snags a piece of bacon from it and breaks the crispy meat off into his mouth.

"Hey! That's for Carina!"

"What about me?"

"You suffer. You were sleeping while we were fighting Jagobin."

"Hey, I risked my life. Tell them, Carina. Tell them."

"He fought well for us," I admit.

"Where's the Quidditch team?" Lorcan asks. "I thought for sure they'd come visit Jeremy and Leo."

"What about you?" George asks. "You're on the Quidditch team." Lysander and Leo eye her at the comment

"Doubt I will be for much longer," Lorcan sighs. "Not with the way I've been playing."

George smirks. "Better than the way I played yesterday. I have the feeling you'll be fine." She smiles over at Leo and I'm not sure about the expression that passes over his face. It's a face I've never seen him make before. Not that I've known him long.

Leo looks over at me and says, "Hey, you know something? Carina looks older."

People look at me and I freeze in place.

"You're right," Jeremy agrees. "She's looked older since the day I saw her in her knickers."

"What?" Rose squeals. "I need to hear this story."

"Really?" I ask. "I look older?"

"Yeah," Frieda says next to me. "You've looked the same all the time I've known you, but now, you've got a certain…style…Those curls in your hair are so grown up."

"It's when the dwarves came," Leo says. "I remember. I noticed it then. She started to look older."

"What ever happened to the dwarves?" George asked.

"They're long gone, searching for Dallen Ruby," I say. "Now that Jagobin's men aren't after them, they're trying to find a way to clear their names and go back home. It must be nice to have a home to want to go back to."

The comment was simple enough to me, but people don't say anything. They don't know anything about my parents forgetting about me, save Leo, but I think I've just said it all.

"Why did no one get me a plate?" Scorpius asks, breaking the silence.

"Because you're the worst," Patricia tells him, ruffling his hair. "Don't worry; you're still fine with us."

"Great, I'm dead to the Slytherns and I don't even get food out of it."

The group hassles him as I sit here, surrounded by the people I know are now my friends. I feel myself growing for the first time in four years. I feel change taking seed inside of me and little plants of happiness popping up all around. I know the sun's no longer tightened me into its bonds anymore. I know I'm not completely free, but I've touched freedom.

And it felt amazing.


End file.
